At the heart of community is forgiveness.

Last month's issue of Relevant included an article by Matt Conner entitled, "I Live With Another Man's Wife."  Conner, his wife, and three other married couples live together in an old historic home in the Midwest.  Their church moved into a building on the "wrong side of the tracks" and after reading John Perkins' Beyond Charity, they decided to move along with it.  Perkins claims in his book that "for real reconciliation to take place, relocation must be involved.  You can't help the poor if you don't know them.  You can't provide an answer if you don't know the real questions being asked."  

Conner writes, "In this economic climate, and with my job as a part-time pastor, it also helped that my wife and I could live for a few hundred bucks a month--which includes everything from groceries to Internet access.  In our scenario, each couple pays the same amount over what we need, giving us a monthly grant to give away to a neighbor in need or a nonprofit....Communal living has provided our group the ability to be generous.  And even though I enjoy a wonderfully healthy marriage, here are moments when outside support is necessary for my role as a pastor and as a regular person.  Within our house, we've enjoyed times of singing together, impromptu prayer sessions and accountability.  Some serious hardships have surprised a few in the house, and having close, committed relationships at arm's length eases the pain and provides perspective.  Communal living extends a web of spiritual and emotional support, reminding us we're in this mission together.  After weighing all these options, it made more sense for us to live together than alone.  Values of simplicity and community firmly take root in such an environment.  One lawn mower rather than four.  One blender, one toaster, one dining table.  There's a freedom in giving the rest away, a commercial liberation of the soul.  It all sounded so good, so wonderful...."

He then goes on to talk about the challenges of living in a community like this.  One he mentions is the way in which it exposes the weaknesses of those living within the community.  "In those moments where others have seen me for who I really am, I want to take all my stuff back--my privacy, my belongings, my rights, my entitlements.  My previous life allowed me some level of comfort, a curtain for me to be the Wizard of my own Oz.  Communal living strips me of all of this, leaving an open wound of my insecurities, sins and fears."

But, "community is built on forgiveness...when forgiveness flows within the community, the individuals within finally come alive."  Conner emphasizes that it's in the mundane routine of their lives that the love in their community shines--purely in day to day coexistence, of using each other's stuff, of daily lessons on ownership.  "It's in the unglamorous, boring routine that your heart really begins to change.  I had a different mindset when we first began--believing that living together with other Christians in the same life stage would lead to all-night talks about how church should really be and how we would inspire on another toward our goals and dreams in ways that living alone wouldn't allow for.  But I was wrong--about a lot of things.  I had no idea how selfish I could be and how hard specific parts of my heart were.  I didn't know I could be loved and forgiven in such deep, meaningful ways.  And I also didn't realize there could be such joy in sharing life so intimately with others."  

I liked this article because of it's honesty.  He doesn't glorify the way they live together or gloss over the challenges they face, and I found his words on forgiveness the most important.  When we forgive, we serve as a reflection of God's love.  Christ is love.  Christ is forgiveness.  Christ is unity.  

"For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations.  His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.  He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.  For through him we both have access to the Father by on Spirit.  Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.  In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.  And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. "  -- Ephesians 2:14-22

much love

-Ellen