Now stay with me. . . I am going in a lot of different directions, but this will come together at the end. . . I promise.
Yesterday, I watched a video commentary about the Supreme Court vacancy following Justice Ginsberg’s death. The video addressed the fight that is inevitable because the president has nominated a replacement. The confirmation process is not going to be smooth, in my opinion. Political rhetoric is what we are going to read, hear, and see. Personal attacks, character assassinations, are going to become normalized and necessary to ‘win the day.' The commentator on this video has strong feelings about the president’s nomination, and his language was even stronger in opposition to it. Feeling a bit ‘yucky’ after watching about a third of this video, I stopped watching it and resumed my afternoon activities.
Once again, outside I heard chainsaws roaring in the driveway adjacent to our home. Scott, Rich, Larry, and Clint were cutting and splitting more wood from the downed oak. With that roaring as background, Emma and I had a conversation about some “teenage girl drama” that she knew about at work. As she told me her story, I noticed that it was so black and white. . . "this person is wrong and that person is right.” This was the basic tenor and tone of what Emma was saying to me. I have no idea if she is correct, but I trust Emma’s judgment. I confess that I was having a hard time following her as I was still thinking about the video that I started and stopped in frustration. How could her issues at work be so clear when so much in my mind isn’t, I wondered. . .
With ’girl drama,’ chainsaws, and the Supreme Court rolling around in my head, I walked over to the burn pile to stir it up. I knew that it was going to rain so I wanted to get as much of the stump that Tom and I hauled over burned up. JonMark followed me with Luna in toe. . . Before he arrived at the fire, he texted me to ask where I was. As I read his message, I figured, ‘oh great, now he wants something.’ That’s unfair of me, but it is where my mind was at that precise moment. I was divided. . .
He arrived, and we just stood there talking about. . . well. . . nothing. . . He just wanted to be where I was and see what I was doing. And with Emma’s story fresh in my mind, and again still thinking about the video, I wondered about the purpose and formation of community? I wondered why so many choose to create community by dividing one person from another instead of unifying—which is what I think Jesus did. . . Why is community now only about who I agree with in the moment, while anyone I don’t agree with is pushed away as a heretic? Why has a larger sense of community been replaced by a form of tribalism and division? And if community-building is suffering, what can I do to reclaim a sense of normal community building?
Sadly, I don’t have a complete answer that will solve this issue. But I do have the words of Henri Nouwen to help instruct me. He wrote:
“However, community is first of all a quality of the heart. It grows from the spiritual knowledge that we are alive not for ourselves but for one another. Community is the fruit of our capacity to make the interests of others more important than our own. The question, therefore, is not ‘How can we make community?’ but, ‘How can we develop and nurture giving hearts?’ “
“Giving hearts,” “being present for one another,” I wonder what that might mean for us as the Body of Christ when we think about community and how to form and create it in this context?
Blessings
Rev. Derek
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