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Let Her Who Is Not In Community Beware Of Being Alone
By gartenfische | October 15, 2007
Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. . . . Let him who is not in community beware of being alone. -Dietrich Bonhoeffer
I am a solitary creature. Peering back through my life to childhood, I see that I have always been, sometimes comfortably, sometimes not. I think it’s partly nature and partly nurture (or lack of—I was by myself a LOT as a child). In recent years, I’ve spent hours and hours and days and days of time in solitude. It is not a bad thing; I’m ruminating up a post about my recent solitudinal years and what it’s meant. But, I digress. . . .
Not too long ago, I wrote about the fact that I both love church and have issues with churchy institutions. I’m fiddling around with the fringes of the prospect that the uncertainty is okay—that it’s part of who I am and where I am right now. From an interview with Barbara Brown Taylor, Episcopal priest and author of Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith:
I am on the edge of Christianity, and I expect to get a letter telling me I’ve been kicked out any day. But my choice, at this point in my life, is to practice the religion of Jesus, instead of the religion about Jesus. When I listen to Jesus preach, I hear him telling stories about people outside of Israel whom God loves as much as people in Israel. That’s Jesus religion.
On the edge. That’s me—always on the edge. If anybody’s going to get one of those letters, I expect it’ll be me. In Leaving Church, Taylor writes, “If I developed a complaint during my time in the wilderness it was that Mother Church lavished so much more attention on those at the center than on those at the edge.”
I don’t think children set out for the edges—most of us yearn to be part of the club, but then we get relegated to edges (often because we are quiet) and we—at least I—grow used to being there. And honestly, I am not friendless by any means, but I have no desire to be the center of any group these days. Edges suit me just fine.
So. I digress. . . .
Church: It’s imperfect. Yes, and? It’s largely a human construct, for heaven’s sake! So you get the beautiful right alongside the typical human messes—just look at the embarrassments going on in my own denomination right now (that would be the Episcopal Church). But, does it have to be perfect for me to be part of it? What if I had to be perfect for people to want to be with me? Right in the midst of the imperfection, moments of Divine Presence can unfold. And they do—I’ve been there. During a hymn, or kneeling at the altar rail alongside other flawed human beings, God might swoop in; why not?—church doesn’t preclude God!
Oh honestly!—I’ve strayed from the point again—going to church isn’t about getting good feelings or even hoping for a God-moment. (I can’t help but secretly hope for it, but I know to at least try to surrender even that.) It seems to me, at this point in my life, that it’s about two things—worshiping God (with or without good feelings) and standing in with other worshipers.
In an interview in The Nation, Richard Rodriguez said: The left, like spoiled children, having been accused of being sinful by the Church, they decide the Church is really sinful. That’s not useful. More useful is to spend a life of service to a Church that is not easily yours.”
. . . a life in service to a Church that is not easily yours.
The Church is not easily his in part because he is a gay man. The Church is not easily mine for many reasons, including the fact that the Church thinks it can decide matters it has no business deciding, like whether gays should be allowed to marry or be priests or bishops (when people are called, it is God who is calling, no?). But if all of us who feel uneasy with the institution hold ourselves apart, what does that mean for the Church? I think Mr. Rodriguez is right—opt in anyway, opt into the the humanity of it as well as the divinity. There is a great post at the St. Edwards church community’s blog that says, “We are saved in community” (remind me of that next summer, when I’m paddling madly in the opposite direction), and: ”Jesus has already said YES to me and you and everyone. It is getting us to say YES back and YES to each other that is the issue.” Beautiful. (I also found the Bonhoeffer quote there.)
So why is my yes always hesitant when it comes to church? I could easily spin myself a few psychological explanations that may or may not hold truth, but does it really matter why? I’ve spent too much of my adult life analyzing; I’ll trust God to lead me on from here. I might go to church and sit on the sidelines for a while; God might call me to get my hands dirty. Who knows? I hope to learn to practice the religion of Jesus, whether in church or outside of church. And yes, I do wish Mother Church were more accepting and understanding of those on the edge, but it seems that part of being on the edge is not being fully accepted or understood. It’s not so bad here on the edge, really, it’s not.
When practicing yoga with a friend recently, we got to navasana and I (predictably) grumbled about how I dislike the pose, and she said that the thing we most don’t want to do is probably the thing we most need to do. As so often happens, yoga wisdom has a much broader application. And echoes of Bonhoeffer, eh? Don’t try to avoid everything that makes you uncomfortable. Beware of settling in.
And just to be my usual contrary self (because if it’s all too neat and tidy, it’s not real), I think I’ll title my next post after one of the Desert Father’s sayings: “Go Into Your Cell And Your Cell Will Teach You Everything.”
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This struck me as funny in a sad kind of way. (Another edger, bless his wacky heart.) Thank you, Mad Priest.
Topics: Ashtanga, God, yoga, Christianity, life |
October 15th, 2007 at 11:55 am
“worshiping God (with or without good feelings) and standing in with other worshipers”
Like practice, yes? You do it because it is what you do. It is definitely a kind of faith, and a very pure one. And you participate with the community to offer your contribution.
Nice.
October 15th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
You have some very wise friends. ;-)
I agree with Karen — it’s your practice, or one of them.
October 15th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
Karen, yeah! I was thinking about the practice as the same sort of phenomenon. Yogis practice in community much of the time, standing (or sitting) together. And we do it in faith.
YM, I do have some wise friends! And am grateful to them. How MUCH we get from (and hopefully, give to) one another, in whatever community–church, yoga. . . .
October 15th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
What a courageous and moving post- so raw in its truthfulness. I am deeply moved.
Well you know how I feel about community. Yet in my own writing about it, I did not spend much time speaking about my many long years away from it, vis a vis, church.
Not unlike you, I was alone a lot as a kid and cultivated a culture of my own aloneness in adulthood.
Things changed for me slowly over time.
I have come to know that community does exist in many forms and fashions. Some repel me, some attract me. For me, regular church attendance is not problematic… now. At other times it has been and I am sure it will be again.
You make many thought provoking points in here with lots of opportunity for soul reflection.
The yoga reference was brilliant and I must say that my re-entry in that world is in some part due to you.
We are a community too.
Peace to you always my friend.
October 16th, 2007 at 10:38 am
Dear Fran, yes, we are a community, too! I do believe that. And I am heartened to know that others move in and out of community–even church community–like I do.
Peace to you, too, always and always.
October 17th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
thanks for the post. It really speaks to some difficulty I’ve been having, personally, in my Quaker Meeting. I love the community of our Meeting. I’m getting clearer about how we are all imperfect and the people that are teaching me that are the people in Meeting that drive me nuts. I figure I probably drive some people nuts, too, being imperfect me.
The Boenhoffer quote really does speak to the edge of things in community. I’m part of the Quaker community, for example, and I feel this precarious balance between being an edger and moving in to feel God’s presence. If I move in too far, I feel that I can be consumed. I was telling a Friend today that I find that people (in that community) are “trying to make me coordinator of something all the time”. So I have to work on this balance, this edge where I can be in community, participate actively and connect with God, but not be consumed by community demands. Thanks.
October 17th, 2007 at 8:22 pm
just wanted you to know that this is very thoughtful, and that I’ll be back. fran is right about you.
October 17th, 2007 at 8:22 pm
as for me, I know I wouldn’t have faith without community, but sometimes as well, I have faith in spite of it.
October 17th, 2007 at 9:28 pm
Chuch, Yeah, isn’t it interesting how we learn these things about our own imperfection, which helps us be more accepting of that in others? And oh, yes, I, too, want to be conscious of not being consumed–moving into community but maintaining that contemplative lifestyle (as much as is realistic).
Diane, Thank you very much. I’m so glad you came to visit! What an insightful comment about having faith sometimes in spite of community–reminds me of what Richard Rodriguez said about being part of a church that is not easily yours.
November 28th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
[…] I can relate to. (Some of us seem to be born—or is it borne?—on the edge; I wrote about my own edgy-ness not long […]