Community & my responsibility...

Today, after babysitting this morning, I got to spend sometime with Jess and we talked about a lot od different things. I was inspired today to become more involved in people's lives. Though not in a harsh and demanding way.

Henri Nouwen, in his book Gracias, wrote, "More and more, the desire grows in me simply to walk around, and greet people, enter their homes, sit on their doorsteps, play ball, and be known as someone who wants to live with them. It is a privilege to have the time to practice this simple ministry of presencve. Still, it is not as simple as it seems. My own desire is to be useful, to do something significant, is so strong that soon my time is taken up by meetings and conferences, that prevent me from walking the steets. It is difficult not to have plans, not to organize people around an urgent cause and not to feel that you are working directly for special progress. But, I wonder more and more if the first thing shouldn’t be to know people by name, to eat and drink with them, to listen to their stories and tell your own, and to let them know with words, handshakes, and hugs that you do not simply like them but you truly love them” (p.147).

How often is it that I am doing these things? with people closest to me, I am surely doing these things, though I might be a little more "demanding" about it. But I can guarantee that with people who I don't know and who don't know me, and who, perhaps, are different than myself whether gender-wise, racially, sexually, spiritually, personality-wise, tempermanent-wise, etc. I am not seeking to find and build community. This really makes me stop and wonder about who it is that I am trying to be and how I might be different now than I once was.

Aside from that wondering, I now have to figure out how I am going to take this knowledge and apply it to my life in a fashion that befits this calling to love God and love others. This is not going to be an easy task, I can figure that out on my own... however difficult this is going to be, I need to remind myself the reason I am in this boat to begin with and I just really need to push myself to put my own motives and desires aside and to search out this journey.