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Happy New Year!
It is not too late to order a copy of the current issue of Weavings, "A Monastery Without Walls," commerating the 100th anniversary of Thomas Merton's birth. Several of the contributors knew Merton and share his influence on their lives.
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The Value of Community
Community life, like marriage, usually begins with romance. But when the romance fades, as it must, community becomes a labor of love requiring simple tenacity. So difficult is community that it often has a brief and inglorious lifespan, a fact that can be observed in the local church where people either exit altogether when the honeymoon is over or withdraw their souls to create the kind of church the Book of Revelation calls "luke-warm."
The function of community is to disillusion us about each other and ourselves, remembering that "disillusionment" is a positive process in the spiritual life: It means losing our illusions so that we may come closer to reality. The human failures of community teach us to put our trust in God, where it belongs, and not in our own skills and charm. As we learn this lesson, the paradox ripens. In trusting God we become more trustworthy to each other, more available for the authentic community that is grounded in God's power and not our own. The renewal of the church depends in part on finding ways to be in community without being in each other's hair, ways of offering each other challenge and support without violating each other's solitude or presuming we can save each other.
If our church communities are going to flourish, we must find ways of being together that respect each person's solitude while offering ample support for the arduous inward journey. Monasticism offers a model of this sort of community. The possibilities for adapting it to our own circumstances are limited only by our imagination.
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Live in peace with each other. And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else. [1 Thessalonians, Today's New International Version]
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Life Together
O God,
give us the grace of open hearts and minds.
Help us to have the courage to speak when we fear we may be wrong.
Help us to have the humility to not mind when we are wrong.
May we corporately find the truths that alone we are unable to find.
For Christ's sake, Amen.
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Save 17% off the cover price.
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Write for Weavings
Themes descriptions, due dates, and writer's guidelines for the 2015-2016 volume, "The Call to Compassion," are available at weavings.org.
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*This monthly newsletter is provided as a free service byWeavings/The Upper Room. It is not intended to replace subscriptions to the print journal. For Subscription Services, call 1.800.972.0433or subscribe online atweavings.org.
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