by Kayla McClurg
“I didn’t know what was so near, or that it was mine.
This perfect sweetness blossoming in the depths of my heart.” – Tagore
In community we begin to discover a desire for what we didn’t know was so near, or that it was ours. Traveling into the depths proves to be a lifelong journey, and happens best in community. One of the benefits of being in a church that strives to be on both an inward and an outward journey, not only as individuals but in community, is that I don’t have to rely on my own sense of how it’s going. When I’m tired and grouchy, needing to retreat from activity, others are enthusiastic about being together. I can bow out while others bow in. When I am pondering my life oh so deeply and sense a great wisdom about God’s plans for me, others are there to remind me that I might not have the entirety of divine wisdom.
I don’t mean that to be in community is to be always opposed to others; I simply mean I am not alone. Nothing depends only on me and my partial understandings. Just as God is so much more than my dearly held theologies and doctrines about God, my life when it is lived with others becomes bigger than itself. When I’m unable to love, you love for me. When I flit from one place to another, you remind me of my roots. In community we can step in or sit out, and the dance continues. The journey doesn’t exist because of me or you. The journey has a life of its own that we are invited to bring ourselves into.
Another gift of the church, at its best, is that it does not lead from its strength–promoting itself as everything you’ll need, and then some. A church that is self-aware knows its weakness and welcomes you in your weakness, too. You will never need to wonder if you are “enough” to belong. The fact is no, you are not enough–and neither are the rest of us. So c’mon. The baggage room is over there–lay down yours and I’ll lay down mine and we’ll lean on God together.
I appreciate a church made up of people who know they are weak and wounded and know that’s not the whole story. Weakness doesn’t automatically translate into community, but it can be a starting place. At the base of community is not weakness, but desire–the desire for God, the desire to grow in love. Without this beginning desire, you might find yourself a member of the United Church of Whining and Eternal Complaint.
Holy desire is at the heart of our search for authentic belonging. Not the kind of desire that Bonhoeffer wrote about, the “wish dream” that defeats community, but the desire to be real with God, self and others. Rather than looking for the “right church” (with the right theology, the right music, the right programs, the right people), nurture the desire. Start hanging out with people who have it. They might be more apt to be found at the Laundromat, at a bar, in the park than in church. Start asking people if they have a desire for the Beyond and where they share it. Who knows, it might be church.
Seek the desire. Find a church that also desires the depths, that will not expect you to be more than you are–or less. Find a church that will draw you out of yourself onto the real journey “blossoming in the depths of your heart.”
Kayla McClurg was on staff at The Church of the Saviour and facilitated the websit, inward/outward.
