Posts
Today’s text
Ephesians 4:2-4
With all humility and
gentleness, and with patience, support each other in love. Take
every care to preserve the unity of the Spirit by the peace that binds you
together. There is one Body, one Spirit, just as one hope is the
goal of your calling by God.
Reflection
Paul Tillich and my friend, Lauren, couldn’t be more
different. Tillich was one of the most influential theologians of the 20th
century. His works are still read, especially in seminaries and graduate
schools, and will affect the thought of pastors, novelists, poets and scholars
for decades to come.
Lauren is a wonderful young woman who has struggled with
muscular dystrophy ever since suffering strokes while she was still in her
mother’s womb. One of her hands is twisted and crabbed, fingers malformed. The
other works slowly, awkwardly. The same is true of her legs and feet.
Her strength is waning these days, but Lauren soldiers on. Last
year she graduated from a two-year program at a local community college and now
works for an agency that provides resources for people like her. After talking
with her last Friday, I want to visit her office.
Lauren tells me everyone who works there has one disability
or another. They are all different, she says, and every hour of the day they
make allowances for what the people around them cannot do, or need help doing,
or what they can do but slowly … with
many pauses for rest or to secure their balance.
They all “get it,” Lauren tells me. They know what it is to
struggle with one challenge or another, and they extend grace to each other’s
needs … and the dignity of allowing each
other to do what they can in their own way.
Tears formed as I listened to Lauren and thought how
wonderful it must be for her to work in this world where people “get her,” a
place of grace and mutual respect. She is seen as the person of care, hope and
good humor that she is, as she begins to make a life for herself against odds
greater than most of us face.
Listening to her transported me more than 30 years back to a
seminary classroom where I first learned to love and (partially) to understand
Tillich.
He wrote powerfully of spiritual community near the end of
his Systematic Theology, and most students
knew, of course, that he was talking about the church as the creation of the
Spirit of Christ in the world.
But our thoughts were far too narrow. We did not clearly
envision Lauren and her work place. We couldn’t then grasp the sacrament of
human community and care in all its beauty, as the Spirit of Christ freely creates
the wonder of spiritual community far beyond the boundaries of church
buildings.
Tears are an interesting thing. They appear when something
deep within us is wounded, touched by love or set free to live and breathe.
Lauren’s words do not flow like water in a stream. She stumbles and often works
hard to say what is clear in her mind. Her words come out in threes and fours, a
pause then several more.
Still, her description of the spiritual community as it
exists in her office was as eloquent and powerful as Tillich’s words--and far
more concrete. She brought me to tears of joy for her.
She also awakened a desire to live, love and laugh in such a
community. My soul longs to breathe freely, revealing its beauty and brokenness
among souls who, with all humility, gentleness and patience, support each other
in love. Who doesn’t want this grace?
But my tears revealed one more blessed truth. Listening to
Lauren, I realized so clearly that I already know and have this grace.
There are many days when I experience this depth of
spiritual community among a people who struggle to live the love of Christ.
Often, we fail. But there days we succeed almost as well as Lauren and her
colleagues.
No comments:
Post a Comment