Skip to main content

Not Political But Personal. Not Systems But Communities.


If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. (I Corinthians 13:1-4)

 

          "Oh God, do I have to go there?"  It would seem that's where I'm going, and I don't know how long I'll be there, but I'm inviting you to go with me. The subject of community building isn't one with which I can claim any real knowledge. I'm deliberately and purposely ignorant. If it has to do with people, well, I have a list of people you can call. They like people. They know what to do with "strays." Give them thirty minutes and they can have a party or a meeting put together. At least, that's the way it seems. Not me. I've been taught the lesson too many times that when I get involved with people, I hurt them and get hurt by them. I've been invited out of too many organizations and friendships to pretend that I am any good at the love side of today's passage or even that I want to be.

          And yet, over the years as I have debated and discussed a variety of social issues with people, I keep coming back to the same problems. When we rely on a system, like the federal government, to solve our social woes, it fails. It's not that the people in the system hate the people they're supposed to help. It's because the system is flawed and at least one of the flaws is intrinsic to the system.  It is too far away. It has no choice but to be impersonal and unresponsive. It must follow programs that may not meet the needs of the people it is trying to help. The system loves the system. It cannot love the people.

         When I have tried to discuss the idea of community building, and of the community coming together to solve some of these social woes, I'm generally told that only the federal government has the power and resources to accomplish these things. The only answers I am given are political.  I look at society and see desperate needs. The answers are not political. They are personal. We must not build systems. We must build communities.   That brings me back to the dilemma: how? We need to figure this out now and at least part of it involves our learning not to be clanging cymbals, not to be nothing and not to be satisfied with gaining nothing. In other words, part of the answer is that we need to learn to love better.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

Listen To Him

              The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him . (Deuteronomy 18:15)           Today, we switch from Jesus’ claims of “I am” to prophecies made about Him. My Bible platform is starting in Deuteronomy. I’d start in Genesis, where we would learn that the one who would save us would be a descendant of Eve (Genesis 3:15), of Noah (by default), Abram and Sara(Genesis 12:1-3). Isaac (Genesis 17:19), Jacob (Genesis 25:23), Judah (Genesis 29:8), and David (II Samuel 7:12-16). There were also references to a new covenant (Jer. 31:31-34; Ezek. 36:22-32). In addition, there were prophecies about when and where the prophet/Messiah would be born and what would happen to him.           Of course, naysayers will claim that Jesus’ life was retrofitted or reverse enginee...
Post a Comment
Read more