Over the Thanksgiving weekend, we went down to the small town of Groveton, Texas where I was able (with only minutes of daylight to spare) to locate my grandfather’s grave.  I have been writing a paper on his ministry, his family, and the tragedy that took him from prominent roles of leadership in the church.  It has been fascinating to peer into the heart and life of someone so close to me.  Its one thing to study history, its quite another to find yourself wrapped up in it.

Placed next to my grandfather’s grave were my great-grandparents, Onan and Wilhelmina Willis.  Next to them were Winslow and Hattie, my great-great grandparents.  It was quite a surprise to see my family lineage placed right before me.  An eerie stillness filled the air, and I found myself wondering what stories filled these graves below me.  For one of the first times in my life, I wanted to know, to deeply KNOW the lives and hearts of those who had gone before me.

When Israelites read the stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they found themselves mixed into the tale.  I think the average American is not able to fully grasp this because they do not have a story or a lineage that they can link back to.  It is that old frontier-spirit, finally rearing its ugly head.  With all the excitement of this “brave new world” we have forgotten where we’ve come from, and now many of us are lost in the dense thicket of an identity crisis.

If you know who you are because of the stories that have been passed down to you and are planted deep within your heart, you are able to make decisions at crucial moments that grow out of who you truly ARE, rather just reacting to the first whimsical emotion that you might feel.  It’s the art of dealing with the dangers of today with the assurance that “it has all happened before”.  This is why mourners sing the old familiar songs at funerals.  In this strange new day where a beloved has passed on, it is comforting and emboldening to hear the songs we have sung in the past when times were just as rough.  THIS to, is our song.  It’s the story that keeps us strong.

Know your story, but don’t just repeat it.  No one likes a sequel that is so predictable that it falls right in line with the first.  Let your heart interact with the story from which you emerge, but then dare to pick up the pen and scrawl out a brand new chapter.  Find the themes you want to continue, and you want your successors to develop still further, and then get out there and live!  Develop regular ways of returning to your story, continuing to hone in on exactly what it says about you; for without a story, you are history.

I regret to admit that I have been inept in my blogification lately. I point the finger at my studies, and extended vacations at the in-laws. I’ve had a lot of amazing things happen lately, but no real time to reflect on them. But I have not given up! I have been keeping notes and hope to write more regularly VERY soon! In the meantime, here’s a quote that has been rattling around in my cage lately:

“The [local church] family is…like a little kingdom, and, like most other little kingdoms, is generally in a state of something resembling anarchy.”

G. K. Chesterton

From the Irresistible Revolution:

“Too often we do what makes sense to us and ask God to bless it.  In the Beatitudes, God tells us what God blesses - the poor, the peacemakers, the hungry, those who mourn, those who show mercy - so we should not ask God’s blessing on a declaration that we will have no mercy on evildoers.  We know all to well that we have a God who shows mercy on evildoers, for if he didn’t we’d all be in big trouble, and for that this evildoer is very glad.  Rather than do what makes sense to us and ask God’s blessing, we’d do better to surround ourselves with those whom God promises to bless, and then we need not ask God’s blessing.  It’s just what God does.”

He’s talking to America when he says, “we should not ask God’s blessing on a declaration that we will show no mercy to evildoers.”  How many times have you seen God’s name associated with the political agendas of this nation?  Or of this world?  “God bless America!”  “God bless this nation!”  Did you know that people in Iraq look at what those in our government leading the war in Iraq and call them “Christian extremists”?  I’m thankful thaht so far they haven’t written all of the Christian faith off over such insanity! Whatever happened to Christians following a Prince of Peace?

Maybe the answer to this nationalistic religion which breeds violence of the foreigner (whether Muslim or Christian) is learning to begin following the Way of Christ.  His teachings on God’s propensity to blessing the poor, the peacemakers, the hungry, etc. is closer than we think to a simple yet profound strategy for world peace.  When we stop following our own “God-blessed” propositions and begin getting to know those whom God has already blessed (see the above list), we begin to discover the mighty ways of God’s Kingdom.

See, American Christians can be so turned around that they read books like the Prayer of Jabez and conclude that God wants to bless them with tons of money and success.  I don’t think Wilknson (the author) necessarily saw how people were going to take his book.  It just tells me that we think that we know better than Jesus does what God should bless.  “It shoure ain’t the poor, cuz that’s what I am now, and I don’t feel blessed!”

Feeling poor?  Down and out?  You are not far from the Kingdom of God.  Feeling distant from God?  Head downtown, look down the alleys; you might find him there.  Head to Iraq as a peacemaker (not a peacekeeper, Clint Eastwood!).  Give away your lunch to someone who hasn’t seen one in days, comfort someone grieving…you’ll find that God and his blessing is not far from any one of us.
Next to the Statue of Liberty on Ellis Island:

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

Does she sound American anymore?

I heard it recently stated that “intimacy in a group as the foundation of community” is a decidedly modern idea. While I didn’t have much knowledge on the subject and the statement caught me off guard without a chance to respond to it, I did a little further researching on the topic.

If we are to say that from a Western perspective intimacy is a relatively modern notion, then we would be correct. In Western history, much of what would have been understood of as community before the Modern period was based more on national identity. More and more however, historians and anthropologists are discovering that intimacy were essential to non-Western civilizations as well. The Incan civilizations, the Pyrenees, and myriad African tribes among others see intimacy as central to belonging to a community.

The basic need of knowing and being known is a global need that can be experienced only in true community. This is not just “intimacy” “authenticity” or “emotionally bleeding all over the table”; it is something much deeper. This cannot be done in massive groups, but must be practiced in groups that fight for each other’s hearts – warriors for each other’s souls. This is the distinctiveness of Christian community: that we understand our community to flow directly out of the unending love seen in our Heavenly Father. This love is characterized by a dying and a living again for the sake of the other. Something that can be done in groups where people know each other deeply and prayerfully engage in life and death together.

Until the digital and electronic age, such community was limited to physical proximity, but now this kind of community can be continued indefinitely. Now even when people move away from each other, spiritual community can continue. Phones, email, and blogs are all ways of listening to the heart of our spiritual siblings, and encouraging each other to live out this self-sacrificing community in the relationships we find ourselves in.

What one must be careful of is not holding so tightly to the virtual relationships that God is not able to reproduce the gift of community in new relationships he has given you. We must connect with virtual friendships that encourage us to recreate the kind of community we have experienced with them with another brother or sister that is in close proximity to us today.

Finding one or two others who will fight for your heart and give of their lives to help you live. That is what community with and in Christ is all about.