Mosaic

Today was a long day, in breadth and depth. It really started last night when our house watched Dead Man Walking for class, and the end was very moving. That started the emotion that would continue right up to practicum today, where I told my story.

There were a lot of potential experiences that could’ve happened during the time, and luckily traumatic was not one of them. It was easier than I thought, even though the environment did not seem to bring out the depth of my experience the way I was hoping for. Which was frustrating, but also understandable.

There is just such a longing in my heart for genuine community that I brought those hopes into the room today. This is one of the reasons that I am really enjoying Mosaic, a local church where I’ve been the past two Sundays. The community I have felt there evokes such a longing in me, a longing for something I feel like has been absent since my days at MSU. It has given me what seems like a safe outlet for expression that my heart is ready for. I have been holding back tears during worship the past two weeks when I see so many who are not afraid to express their hearts to God, to really let go and as a community join in praise – there is quite a spirit in that room. It is definitely not an emergent church/mars hill graduate school type church, but does any of that really matter when people just join in community like that? The community is scary, as are any new relationships that really start to have some depth to them. But I am looking forward to taking some risks there and seeing what unfolds. I am willing to take that risk for community.

As I was writing my I and Thou paper, I ran across Martin Buber's idea of what true community was:

"True community does not come into being because people have feelings for each other (though that is required, too), but rather on two accounts: all of them have to stand in a living, reciprocal relationship to a single living center, and they have to stand in a living, reciprocal relationship to one another."