currently on my mind

It's been one of those whirlwind months - in ways both tragic and joyful, filled with the kinds of events that seem to erase whole days or weeks out of the calendar and make you wonder where the time has gone. I've started to expect this out of July, but I haven't yet learned how to keep my mind from becoming its own tornado of disorganized thoughts that are each begging for their own page but can't seem to break free of one another for long enough.

This month began with death. I couldn't have avoided being rocked to my core by that awful start, even if I had wished to; death is everywhere, and yet until it hits us cruelly in the face we treat it like an invisible elephant in the room so that it will not be allowed to alter the way we live our lives, the way we relate to others, the way we see God. Questions emerged that most of us spend our lives keeping bottled up: Was I ready for him to die? Do I keep my accounts with others short? Will I have regrets the next time I am faced by this tragedy? In the face of it all, does the fake smile and the insincere "Hi, how are you?" really have a place in Christian relationships? Do we understand our common ground with all of humanity in that we will all die, too? Do we understand our common ground with other Christians in that death is a victory because it is merely the threshold into glory? Are we forcing and talking up a version of "community" in our churches that does not seem to recognize the gravity of any of these principles, that asks us only to meet once a week and try too hard to be profound instead of inspiring us to build genuine relationships with others over hardship and food and laughter and a mutual anticipation for an eternity of joyful communion to come?

And in the middle of these questionings I was given twelve sweet days with a friend whose company gives me that rare sense of peace - that all is set right and that this is how community with another believer should look. We eat and laugh and joke and are ridiculous, we share experiences that draw us closer to each other and to God, and we are able to talk of deep spiritual things late into the night without ever feeling like we're trying too hard. This was like a two-week oasis in a year of feeling alone and frustrated. And it only made me ask more questions: Is genuine community with a whole body of believers even a realistic aspiration? Are there really that many people with whom we can relate in a spiritually intimate way, or were we only ever intended to find a few such souls and cherish them? Is it possible that we confuse Jesus' commandment to "Love one another" with "Try to be everybody's best friend"? Is it really even safe to attempt complete transparency in front of such a large and diverse group? Do we innately know that it isn't, and that's why we cover our true selves with a guise of forced sincerity even while we wish so much to be authentic and loved anyway?

But is safety the goal? What's the balance between protecting yourself and your reputation from gossip and slander and dying to self for the ultimate good of others and glory of God? Disregarding the former can destroy your ministry and your testimony, but if we fail to do the latter haven't we accomplished the same?

I don't know the answers. I'm searching the Scriptures in hope that soon I'll have a better understanding. (And if your understanding is clearer than mine, please share!) What I have seen so far is that the learning, the worship, and the fellowship of Christians in the early church seems far less formal and formulated than ours today, and maybe they were onto something - not to mention the far greater emphasis they placed on the power and working of the Holy Spirit than we do. But all this is rambling that will hopefully come together better in a future post, once my brain has sorted itself out.