March 22nd, 2011 at 4:15PM
Community, then, cannot grow out of loneliness, but comes when the person who begins to recognize his or her belovedness greets the belovedness of the other. The God alive in me greets the God resident in you. When people can cease having to be for us everything, we can accept the fact they may still have a gift for us. They are partial reflections of the great love of God, but only once we give up requiring that person to be everything, to be God. We see him or her as a limited expression of an unlimited love. Henri Nouwen. —

We all desire meaningful friendships, relationships, bff’s, soul mates - so those last two are a cheesy reminder of my childhood but carry with their title significant meaning.  Best friends forever, soul mate, my other half.  Do you remember the necklaces adorned with charm cut in half - one side reading be….frie on one side of the heart, while the other side of the heart reading st….nds.  When you put it together they read best friends in a completed heart.

We expect, and need our friends to complete us.  Or our wives, or our husbands.  Or our girlfriends, or boyfriends.  Any relationship wearing this weight in search for community, in search of connection will end in several more pieces than these two.  Our relationships are with sinful people, bearing the image of God, some redeemed some not, some healed and some in need, some mature and some not, all looking for a place, all looking for a community.  All just a man or woman not a completing piece that can produce identity and significance, just a man or woman. 

When we learn who we are in relation to the gospel, and live into this, our relationships have the ability to be healthy and our community good. It is like Psalm 133.

  1 How wonderful and pleasant it is
      when brothers live together in harmony!
 2 For harmony is as precious as the anointing oil
      that was poured over Aaron’s head,
      that ran down his beard
      and onto the border of his robe.
 3 Harmony is as refreshing as the dew from Mount Hermon
      that falls on the mountains of Zion.
   And there the Lord has pronounced his blessing,
      even life everlasting.

or refreshing than a ice cold glass bottled coke on a hot summer day.

or a afternoon nap following a feast with friends.

or a sunrise over the atlantic horizon.

or a shooting star on a clear summer night.

You know that feeling, that reality, but this Harmony, unity, and community will not spring from loneliness, what you are looking for - validation, actualization, call it what you will wholeness…this starts and ends with God and involves a community of just men or women, nothing more nothing less.  How we long for meaningful relationships.  But this starts with finding and knowing our source of meaning and wholenss.  May we not load our relationships with this, they will all crush under the weight of our expectations and loneliness, but may we responsibly live together - as men and as women living a limited expression of an unlimited love.
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