December 26, 2004
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Sorry to make two entries in one day, but there is one more great quote from Vanier.
He talks about how when someone receives a special call from Jesus and starts growing in greater love and compassion it begins to show the mediocrity of others and their spiritual paths. That real growth in a community is only possible if people are respected for their personal development. That many of the prophets of old were killed for their spiritual growth and value.
Vainer makes the distinction between community-oriented groups and issue-oriented groups (such as save the whales, political parties, etc.)
P. 49 “There is a danger, in issue-oriented groups not based on community, that the enemy is seen as being the one outside the group. The world gets divided between “the good” and “the bad.” we are among the good; the others are bad. In issue-oriented groups, the enemy is always outside.
Basically the focus has to be within.
p.50 “True community is different because of the realization that the evil is inside—not just inside the community, but inside me. I cannot think of taking the speck of dust out of my neighbor’s eye unless I’m working on the log in my own. Evil is here in me. Warfare is in my own community, and I am called to be an agent of peace there. But warfare is also in me and I am called to seek wholeness inside of myself. Healing begins here, in myself.”
It is so easy for myself or others to find the faults in others, and not look within for where we are deficient. I guess it is a way of protection, and it is tough to remember that what we usually find fault in others about is exactly what is weak in ourselves. Far easier to judge others than ourselves.
Hope the exerpts that I shared are helpful. They got me thinking.
Heather
Comments (1)
I appreciated your comments on my page. No, I have not “found” answers to my questions yet… I say “found” because I think it’s too trite a phrase for so deep a thing – yet human language doesn’t really have words for these questions, any more than the words I chose for the questions really do them justice.
There are two ways to ask “What do I have to look forward to?”: the first is pessimistic, holding the question already answered by nothing and hence the question itself futile; the second is optimistic, regarding the question as having an answer yet trusting God will provide once, hence making the question itself the starting point of a journey that, while having no guarantee or giving the questioner the answer desired, will eventually conclude in an answer, either in this life or in the life to come.
Whether that is hopeless idealism or clear-eyed decision-making depends again, upon whether the reader has predetermined the answer for God’s faithfulness or his faithlessness… the latter choosing to believe in God’s nonexistence or in his caprice due to the world’s chaos and pain, the former choosing to believe the limited evidences of the salvation experience and the Bible’s veracity as “deposits” in our world today that promise a greater “payoff” upon placing our own deposits of trust in him. As the old quote goes, “God is visible enough so that those who seek him will find him, yet remains invisible enough that those who wish to have nothing to do with him will not have his existence forced upon them.”
You know, that was pretty good. I think I’ll put that on my website, too. Feel free to post to my site again, I check it daily…