Dear friends,
I’m writing to you as we unpack our things from our sixth move in almost eight years. We’ve landed near Cape Cod and have a water view from our new, quirky apartment. Minus a year and nine months, Aaron and I have lived within Christian communities for the whole of our adult lives. This move marks the end of our time living in this style of “intentional community” for the foreseeable future.
Get any group of people to live together, especially theology bookworms or clergy-in-training and you’ve got fertile soil for the absurd and the beautiful. Community — a word that saturates public conversation these days — is the sort of thing that proves truth really is stranger than fiction. (Oh, the stories I wish I could share!!) This overused word has a thousand definitions, I’m sure, but I like Wendell Berry’s definition right now:
“A community is the mental and spiritual condition of knowing that the place is shared, and that the people who share the place define and limit the possibilities of each other's lives. It is the knowledge that people have of each other, their concern for each other, their trust in each other, the freedom with which they come and go among themselves.”1
The scriptures tell us, too, God builds a house with many rooms and gathers a kingdom with many people. Playing with Berry’s definition, I imagine the home we share with God is messy just like mine. The mess means there’s life to be found inside and God, the Holy Parent, guides us in our connection, or in Berry’s words, knowledge and trust, shared between each other.
Most recently, we’ve lived and worked at two seminaries on the east coast. At first glance the obvious differences between them — evangelical and Episcopal, affirming and non-affirming, large and small, a dry campus and one with a bar — seem to position them as opposites. And yet these two have more in common than they might readily admit. Both campuses informally call themselves a “holy hill”. Both are in close proximity to centers of political or intellectual power. Both seminaries are prominent sources of church leaders who shape the pastoral care and practical theology in congregations worldwide. Both student bodies are full of dynamic, thoughtful people. Both seek to be a witness of Christ. And both get it wrong sometimes.
From the front porch or the mailroom, observant eyes and ears notice all kinds of things. Though these are usually the folks studying how to make the world a brighter place, trouble is not far off. Aspiring leaders of the church from all points along the spectrum of faith fall into infidelity, divorce, alcoholism, deception, neglect, breaches of confidentiality, exclusion, pettiness, arrogance, and all the -isms you can think of. Sometimes I’m sincerely surprised. Sometimes I’m not. Sometimes it’s been me. Needless to say the “holy hill” is messy.
On an average day, we also witness the kindness of Christ through those very same neighbors. Sunday night dinners, shoveled driveways and parking spots, pet-sitting, knocks of small children on the door asking to play, sing-a-longs around the piano, gifts of time, money, and presence, treats left on the doorstep, intergenerational friendships, borrowed tools, family aid, generous childcare, rides to the doctor’s office, open invites, and forgiveness.
Our sweet Rosalie was baptized last month surrounded by a community who has further opened our eyes to God’s tender mercy. The service was shaped by song and fiery preaching. Despite any daily disorder from community life, we vowed together that night, with God’s help, to be faithful to Rosalie’s formation. Together we watched the water pour over her sweet head and celebrated this symbol of unearned grace extended to each of us.
I don’t have all the necessary words to explain or understand what this sacrament means in its fullness. Does anyone, really? Any intellectual knowledge I have on baptism fades in comparison to the mystical, felt sense. Baptizing my babies has been one of the most meaningful experiences of my faith, not because I expect them to embrace Christian beliefs, but because it reinforces the idea we belong to each other, mess, mercies, and everything in between. We gather together with the assumption this day reflects an eternal truth: You belong to God, you belong to us, and we belong to you. You always belong to God’s household. The child is held by the embodied vows of those around them as this mystery works its way into everyday life.
Dependance on one another isn’t glamorous most days, but it certainly defines much of what the Gospel teaches and what the sacraments point our attention to. The church as a whole has a long way to go until A Big Tent is fully realized, but our local communities, Christian or otherwise, are perfect places to lean into this reality. I can’t end this letter without mentioning Laura Jansson, an Eastern Orthodox doula and mother. In her book she articulates this idea through the breastfeeding child:
“How beautiful it is, then, to see a breastfeeding mother approaching the chalice at Divine Liturgy, knowing that she shares with her nursling every crumb that passes her lips — that the Mysteries nurture not just her but also the one she nurtures. Through her milk, she teaches him the faith, and he can receive the spiritual food even before he is received by baptism into the Church.”2
Each of us, whether or not we are baptized or breastfed, are dependent on God’s milk to sustain our interconnection in, through, and by all things. God, the Provider and the Homemaker, makes home in us where we are loved into wholeness through the community of God.
Reflection Practice: Neighborhood Visio Divina
Visio divina, Latin for divine or sacred seeing, is an invitation to prayerfully notice God’s presence with an image. Read more about this practice here.
Take a walk in your neighborhood and snap a picture or two of something that catches your eye. Keep it local and stay within walking distance of your home.
Spend a few minutes observing the image. Notice how the image invokes a response within you and where God’s invitations may be waiting for you.
Currently Reading:
How to Walk into a Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away by Emily P. Freeman
The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron
This quote is from The Long-Legged House but I heard it first on A Drink with a Friend, episode 162.
Fertile Ground: A Pilgrimage through Pregnancy by Laura S. Jansson