Blog / Community

I feel like I want to start a blog for all us post-Gateway or Gateway influenced people – of course our conversations and the actual experiments of actualizing these thoughts on the many topics touched on in Gateway continue within our own neighborhood communities, but some cross-pollination of thought or lessons learned from practical implementation is usually fruitful (if it doesn’t take over). Or maybe I should just stick with my new conversation partners – let me know.

I don’t actually know how to start a blog in such a way that I could invite you all to write as well – so – here’s an email with some of my current thoughts on religious communities (your small group – your household) – I would love a response with some of your current thoughts/reads if you have a minute, certainly no pressure – I think the folk on this list are all thinking about this enough (or would like to be) that you could hit reply-all :)

I’m reading Henri Nouwen’s Intimacy – I’ve been reading it for awhile – it walks through different but interconnected thoughts, some transformational for the individual with implications for the community, some transformational for the community with implications for the individual: A discussion of religious growth from a psychological perspective – From magic to faith; a discussion of sexuality – the challenge to love; one on student prayers – between confusion and hope; a discussion of the Pentecostal movement on campus which has a lot to say both to the evangelical and emergent movements as well; a discourse on religious community and depression in seminaries; the priest and his mental health; and lastly, training for the campus ministry {now you know why I picked the book up}.

Here are some notable excerpts from the religious communities section:

“The students all hope to find three things [in seminary-though I think in some ways I see myself at least seeking this from “the church”]:

a) Competence, which enables them to cope with the demands of society.

b) Control, which provides them with channels for their unruly impulses.

c) Vocation, which gives them the conviction that they are called to do what they felt vaguely attracted to.”

Nouwen then points out that to feel competent to the point of usefulness theologically is difficult, the seminary (and I argue, the church) is not unambiguous about the boundaries self-control ought confine us to (he speaks specifically about sexuality), and “If a student comes to deepen his vocation, he finds that hardly anybody can tell him what it means to be a priest.” I’ve found that vagueness in the clashing conversation of what it means to be a Christ-follower as well.

“Many seminarians, who have participated in year-long discussions about every possible basic subject are showing signs of fatigue, disappointment, confusion and even hostility. Some even feel cheated, as if they had wasted their time groping with questions which don’t lead anywhere and are doomed to create frustration.”

He asserts that the methods of dialogue and small-group living as a part of religious education may have overlooked complications which contribute to these frustrations.

Dialogue:
He says we presuppose that “free and open sharing of ideas and feelings brings people closer together and, secondly, that a high degree of verbal interchange facilitates existential decisions by clarifying the issues involved. Our first question therefore is: Does verbal communication bring people closer together?”

Citing the graded students’ sense of self-consciousness, he says, “Instead of trying to better understand the speaker’s position, the listener is thrown back on himself, and is busy figuring out his own position.” - so people convince each other of ideas they don’t hold because they feel like they have to enter the conversation with something they think. {so feel no pressure to respond to this email}

“How far does the clarification of pertinent issues help to solve existential problems?” He says, “analysis means a temporary delay of participation” and that existential problems aren’t solved by our limited rationality in theology but points to the meditation practices of the nonreligious and “incense and other stimuli, auditory and visual” as striving to “reach a higher degree of participation with the basic sources of life.”

Small group living:

a) No possibility for private process: “Whatever you do and don’t do can become highly charged by very personal connotations.”

b) Meaning of a team: “The common task is what determines the nature of the team…In a formation setting, however, the team often is not task-oriented.” “And although it might be very important that individual anxiety and confusion be expressed at certain times, the main purpose of the whole formation is to encourage students to grow away from this self-interest and to become free and open, to be really interested in the life and concerns of their fellowmen.”

c) Unrealistic desires for intimacy - “it is very important to prevent the team from becoming a clique which is allowed to act on primitive needs and desires.” “The main danger is that a task-oriented team degenerates into a self-oriented clique in which sticky relationships drain the psychic energy of the students and allow regressive behavior.”

d) Fatigue – “This so-called neurotic fatigue is the result of a way of living which is characterized by hyperawareness, by which man does not rely any longer on his automatic processes, but wants to know what he does from moment to moment…Somehow man in that state of fatigue has lost his basic confidence that life is good and worth living and acts as if he has to be constantly awake, always prepared for unexpected traps and dangers.” The solution is not rest from study as it encourages the analytic cycle.

Proposed therapy for these drawbacks:

a) An authority structure that is “authoritative without becoming authoritarian” – leaders who are competent, mature, who have faith and are willing to criticize, reprimand and even punish “But the authority by which this happens should be based not on subjective feelings and ideas, not on abstract rules and regulations, but on a critical, competent and objective understanding of the students’ behavior.”

b) Good leadership which is able to take responsibility in the “highly moral activities” of dialogue and small group living.

A vision:
“Religious community is ecclesia, which means called out of the land of slavery to the free land. It is constantly moving away from the status quo, searching for what is beyond the here and now. As soon as the community becomes sedentary, it is tempted to lose its faith and worship the house-gods instead of the one true God who is leading it in a pillar of fire.”

“He who promises hard work, long hours, and much sacrifice will attract the strong and generous but he who promises protection, success and all the facilities of an affluent society will have to settle for the weak, the lazy and the spoiled.”

“The task of the religious community is to constantly move away out of the comfortable situation and to look for areas where only one who is willing to give his life wants to go.” Don’t loose contact with the pillar of Pentecost fire.

Peace to you – inward and outward,
Sef

p.s. if you like Donald Miller/McLaren/Peterson – you can also look up Rob Bell http://www.beliefnet.com/story/172/story_17290_1.html (not advocating the site, but the interview is ok – and it is a fascinating Petri dish of a site)…also…Mew is a great band…also, read the Book of Common Prayer :)

p.p.s. after you’ve read the Celtic Book of Daily Prayer too – try a fun Viking raid game where you can raid the abbey at Lindisfarne: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/vikings/launch_gms_viking_quest.shtml