reflecting on community... and lots of questions...

April 6 2009 email tidbits

Loved reading this email you sent about the gathering of women who support each other. I think that is something we really really miss in our society… I think in the old days when there really were “villages” and people lived close together all their lives, and every woman was a sister and mom and auntie and grandma to all, I think that is something we really need. Even when things were terrible-terrible, they were there for each other… I think now we don’t even have any idea how that happens, if we haven’t grown up like that… But when I watch interactions of girls and women who have grown up in a close-knit village, even where there is a lot of chaos and sorrow and pain, I see that they still have each other to cling to, to support, to be cared for, even if to an outsider it looks like maybe it’s co-dependency or something… maybe it really is, at a deeper level, the kind of community/ village relationship that was meant to be, even with all the bad stuff mixed in, it’s still under there…

A big part of it, what we’ve lost, is the ability to be transparently honest… Our society demands that we “look good” no matter what is going on… Our churches demand it, too, because if you don’t do that, you’re afraid the church will say that you aren’t “trusting God” or that you “lack faith” or are “not a good Christian” or that you are “making the church look bad” or whatever… I wonder how long that has been going on? I wonder if it actually takes totally hitting bottom to become honest… because then there’s no other hope… or if it really is (I hope) that even in the midst of all the sorrow and trouble, the sense of village, family, community has somehow hung in there through thick and thin… I think it is this thing, this sense of community that I’ve seen, especially among those women, that keeps me wanting to go somewhere where centuries of institutional (church, school, state, etc) influence, and also transience, everybody moving far from each other, hasn’t totally destroyed that sense…

.... There is a French teaching opening at a Christian School on Vancouver Island… but I just don’t feel like I want to get “systemed” again… besides, you have to become an “active member” of their church if you want to teach there…. big temptation to apply so we could move… but I’m thinking that’s not God’s way….

…. (reflecting on Ezra) : I’m feeling “in ruins” these days… having a really hard time being “the house of God”… being in relationship… part of it is from being in pain so much, which makes me tired and depressed and spacey; and part of it is from suddenly realizing my mom is gone (almost a year later…) and feeling sad and lonely about that… but I think it’s also from feeling “alone”… I mean, I know I’m not alone when I’m with Father, of course, but I’m feeling so disconnected from the rest of His family…

I’m skittish about “leaders” these days… and it seems like most people don’t want out of “Babylonian captivity” anyway… like maybe they don’t want to actually “see” the ruins… maybe it’s just easier to stay in the land of exile… than to face seeing the rubble, and having to make a decision to face the truth of it… and to do the hard work of clearing out and starting from scratch and building totally anew… and seeing that the “new temple” doesn’t look as “grand” and “big” as the old one… wanting to be able to “physically see the grand temple” than to realize that the spiritual temple is what is really important, but it’s often much harder to see…

But maybe if the gathering place really was destroyed, made into a mound of rubble, and to be exiled, would be good, because then there would be real longing for the true city of God and the true gathering place… as long as the “old temple” remains standing, and the rituals continue, even if they’ve pretty much lost all real meaning, maybe there’s no real desire to truly meet with and know God… hmmm… am I making any sense? (Still feeling kind of fuddled…)

I feel like I’ve been in an Ezra kind of place… except that while I’ve still been more or less in favor with the “king and his advisors”- pastor and congregation, you know – they are NOT backing me, they want to hold me back there… they really don’t believe that the ruins are really ruins, I think…. I think they think that it’s still capable of being “renovated” or whatever… not that it’s been burned to the ground, and all the rocks, even the foundation ones, broken and scattered… or at least the “rocks” that have replaced/ become the foundation, because maybe they’ve lost view of the fact that the real Foundation is a Rock that can never be moved… does this make any sense?

I know we fast and pray… but then I wonder how much we really are humbling ourselves, if we are really willing to take wise guidance, if it means we might have to totally break with what we hold dear… even to totally destroy the connections to the present way… but what if they are humbled, and it is me who is being “proud” about my level of “emancipation” or whatever… and I’m not doing so well these days talking to Father about these things… but maybe if I’m well enough to be writing, I’m well enough to get back to really talking to Him… Father? yes, okay… 

…. Another thing that worries me: this question that keeps nibbling at the corner of my mind, “Do you really think you’re going to find a gathering of God’s people where there isn’t trouble?” … and I hope it’s just the enemy nagging… but my experience says otherwise… because of course if I am there, there’s going to be trouble… so is it then better to just stay where one is and try to “fix it from the inside”? … but I don’t see that helping either… Of course I’m awfully short-sighted…

Maybe what I’m looking for is support, help… But I keep thinking, “I shouldn’t need to look for help. Because I have the Spirit of God… so Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit are always with me” but then I think, “But He designed for us to be part of the family”… “the family” hmmm… that’s ALL the family, isn’t it? So I don’t have a right, do I, to feel critical toward parts of the family who see things differently than I do? (or do I?) Does that mean I shouldn’t “leave” them, should carry on, try to “open their eyes” … but maybe they think MY eyes need opening! … who’s right?..) (I don’t want to go back into the land of bondage, of exile from the heart, the throne of Papa… and I don’t see how going back “to help them see” is going to help… unless Father sends me there very specifically… in which case He would empower me to stay free of the shackles even while surrounded by them, wouldn’t He?) (It’s an awful temptation, when you’re feeling “alone” to try to kind of walk the fence… to try to be “in but not of” … but how far does that whole “in but not of” thing go? … it seems “safer” to me to be “in but not of the world” than to be “in but not of” the “institutional” church…. it seems like in the world it’s more obvious what is “world” so it’s easier to avoid… Am I making any sense at all?