Fully human

I just spent 3+ days at a gathering at Mt. Hermon with Cheri, good friends and a group of people on a journey. The journey is the same for us all, yet takes us down different roads. I’d love to be able to summarize it in a sentence or even a paragraph but….so….OK- I’ll give it my best and try real hard not to use worn out cliches. Most of us come from the Christian religion and we have seen it become in many ways just that- another religion with the associated rules, rites, guilt, shame, subculture, expectations, who’s who, are you in or out, etc. Many have come to a point of being tired- tired of playing the game. Frankly, tired of ‘doctrine’, tired of living up to the expectations of the rule-keepers, tired of religion. So we dream and we let our well trained minds out of the ‘religion’ box and ask “what did God have in mind when he made us? What does it mean to be fully human? Is that congruent with the ‘abundant life’ or ‘eternal life’?” In other words, did God create us to play a type of waiting game- sticking it out and sucking it up in this life while we wait for that next one? Does human = bad?

The one example that seemed to get more play than others had to do with appearances. One man’s story about his senior picture that had been airbrushed and how he wanted that picture to represent him even though it was the most unlike him. The idea is that we (and especially I) want to project an image that is better than reality. We want to show our ‘good’ side and keep the other side(s) hidden, secret. Someone has said “you are only as sick as your secrets”. And so, part of living in real community is not hiding, but revealing. Not being ashamed of our humanity but exposing all of it- the good, the bad, and the sinful. Confessing to each other is God’s way. It’s healthy. It’s functional- highly functional. Must be how we were made. The more that I keep it to myself, the more unrealistic I am and want others to be about me. Not good=not healthy=not functional=not the way were made.

(I had a feeling this wouldn’t be short) Being the visual type I came to view my life as a pipe- like a pipe that carries water, say…in a fountain. I function best when the water can flow unimpeded through me. So what people notice as they see the fountain is the water, not the pipes that carry the water. The best that I can offer is to be a clean, clear channel for the living water to flow. Anything that hinders the flow or draws attention to the pipe is not fully functional- in fact dysfunctional. My 'pipe' is not identical to any other pipe so the fountain flowing through me will be unique- the expression of Christ living through me will look different than anyone else. Not only is that OK, it's by design and it's the mosaic that makes the body so beautiful (when it's functioning) I just remembered a song from college days "I got a river of life flowing out of me.."

Other thoughts from the weekend:
Heidi (who has adopted 7 boys – 3 from Africa) waking up to pray “God help me, there is no way I can pull this off under my own power” before she rolls out every morning.

Kelley talking about counting the cost and realizing that when we don’t have enough on our own- to negotiate the terms of peace, which in our case with God means full surrender.