Disillusionment: The Key to Community

The other night I expressed how deeply flawed I was, how disillussioned I was with myself, for I knew me, and I know how flawed and wrong I am and can be. Although I was reassured by my friend that certainly it isn't so I knew in my heart how right I was in my innermost feelings. I knew and recognized my feelings, yet I did not fully understand them, or their reasons for existing. Tonight I read a passage from "Life Together" by Dietrich Bonhoeffer that said' "God is not a God of the emotions but a God of truth. Only that fellowship that faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects,begins to be what it should be in God's sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise given to it. The sooner the shock of disillusionment comes to an indiviual and to a community the better for both." It was like a lightswitch was thrown- an answer, an understanding to my feelings of inadequacy and disillusionment with who and what I am.
     For me to enter into community with God, through my relationship with his son Jesus Christ, I must be stripped of all illusions of who I think God wants me to be, be stripped of all illusions of who I think I should be, and freed from all illusions and visions of how I think community with him should be. Bonhoeffer says later, "God hates visionary dreaming. It makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his own demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God himself accordingly." The point here is it is not for us to dream, to try and determine what community with God and other Christians should look like. It is just for us to enter into it, to allow God to work in his model of community, not ours. He already has brought us into fellowship with him, through the blood and mediation of his son, and we are already ready to live in community with him if we can only cast aside our visions of what that should be and just enter in with him...

    As I reflect on past experiences, both personal and observed, I can't help but see the truth that Bonhoeffer was so eloquently describing. In my past was I not guilty of spiritual pride? Did I not hold others to my own exacting standards, did I not sit in condemnation of others who didn't measure up? I was wrong, for I was inflicting my visions, my standards on others, and I was woefully prideful in my own "goodness". And what of the larger model of community, the church? I cannot recall attending even one local church that did not have a "vision" or visions of what they wanted to be and/or what they desired to accomplish. I think back on past, and even recent, cutbacks of staff and programs in churches I've attended and now ask myself, "Were they striving to meet their own 'vision' or were they laying aside all their illusions and just living in community with God and allowing him to direct the direction and 'vsion' of the church?" I can't help but wonder that if God were really directing things would there ever be a need for a cutback or layoff? Are we, as local bodies of Christ (churches) guilty of being visionaries?

     "For he himself is our peace..." (Eph. 2:14). When we come into community with God, through Jesus Christ, and do so without our visions, our illusions, we find peace, I find peace. We find peace with God, whatever the circumstance, and we find peace with our Christian brothers also living in community with God. Community is a gift of grace from God, pure and undistorted, if we only enter in in our dissillusionment... Food for thought...

To have, or not to have...

I was preparing to go to my honey's house this past Sunday, to watch football together, (that's right guys- she watches football! Eat your hearts out!) when I remembered some stuffed pizza I had left in the fridge and I thought, "I wonder if I should take it, just in case we want to nibble on it?" Better to have it, I reasoned, and not want it, than to want it and not have it...

That led me to ponder, is it better to want something but not have it, or have something but not want it? If we lack something and desire it we well may work toward achieving it. On the other hand, having something but not wanting it is waste, perhaps depriving someone of something they may want or need. Not having can create desire, give purpose or direction, set a goal. Having but not wanting is paramount to being wasteful, leading to nothing productive, just the accumulation of things no longer desireable...

Perhaps we need to rethink our motivation in our drive to accumulate "things", for the achievement is not in their aquisition, but in the drive, the desire created, to achieve. It is not the "thing" we desire that is important, but the setting and achieving of the goal... Food for thought...

Relationship Enrichers...

I often think that, as a society, we should get back to simplier, less complicated ways in our lives. We live life at breakneck speed, often going from dawn to dusk, without pause to realize that life is happening now, as we fly right by in our quests to accomplish. Occassionally slowing down, even stopping, to enjoy the moment can add untold riches to our lives, if only we realized...

This morning I was pondering the eloquence of three simple words, and the thought then occured to me that there are quite a number of three word phrases that could enrich and enhance our lives if we only chose to regularly practice them. For example:

I was wrong.

You go first.

I miss you.

May I help?

I am sorry.

Thank-you for____.
I appreciate you.
You're the best.
Please help me.
Simple phrases, surely, but packed with power. Relationship enrichers...
But the most powerful of all the simple phrases, the most incredibly impactful one is simply,
"I Love You"...
Food for thought...

Bonhoeffer on "Religion"

I've expressed my views in the past concerning "religion", and have stated I am not a religious person, nor do I ascribe to all the do's and don'ts we seem to have in organized religion... Tonight as I was reading "Bonhoeffer" I read a quote from his journal, that he wrote after attending a service at Riverside Church, in New York, 1939. (Riverside was one of the pre-ememinent churches of it's day) I think he experienced what I have observed even today in many of our church experiences. It went as follows: "The whole thing was a respectable, self-indulgent, self-satisfied religious celebration. This sort of idolatrous religion stirs up the flesh which is used to being kept in check by the Word of God. Such sermons make for liberalism, egotism, indifference. Do people know that one can get on as well, even better, without "religion"?"

I believe what Dietrich Bonhoeffer was saying was that when we tend to get wrapped up in the whole "religion" experience we tend to lose sight of Jesus Christ's message and example. Too often we see churches get caught up in all the pomp and tradition and forget to teach (if they even know how themselves!) to live in community with God and each other. The message we hear is how we can "feel good" about ourselves, our lives, that we forget that God doesn't promise our lives will be happy, but abundant. He doesn't say our lives will be worry free, but he does say yoke up with Him and your burden will be light (more on that another time)... Bonhoeffer didn't believe in "cheap grace", or grace that people want to accept without selling out for God in return. I believe that we as Christians practice cheap grace as a matter of course. We have it so easy, not really ever experiencing any persecution for out faith, that we get lax in our faith. Sometimes, when we don't experience tough times we don't appreciate the good times... We are not called to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ only to continue to live as we see fit, we are called to sell out completely to Him if we want to be called a child of God... Food for thought...

Finally, An Answer?

Several months ago I revisited my "Open Letter" blog written several years prior... It was a letter I wrote to "the one " I've been searching for. Now, after many, many months of being alone I have met someone who could potentially be the one to whom that letter was written... We've corresponded, been out several times now, and seem to share a lot in common... She's special.

I'd appreciate a prayer or two, if you who read are so disposed, that if this is the lady that God has for me, that our relationship grow, and be blessed.

Thank you.  ~Bud