Although there are many communal dangers, I want to talk about the difficulty community brings to friendship. I told Lisa this morning that I feel like there’s a stone of sorrow anchored deep within me. On one level I trust all will be well. This is where any hope I have resides. At another level I see through a very dark glass and live in a world without any glimmer of hope at all. Being in the church has its good parts. When it’s good it’s awesome. But it is also a very difficult way to live. Like one friend said to me recently: she’s found the church to be a place of incredible pain when it comes to relationships. She’s surprised she’s still committed. But she’s right. Where there’s any spirit, the flesh wars against it. Which is why mixing friendship with religion and community is incredibly delicate, risky and often painful. When there’s agreement, things sail. When there’s not, there’s severance, divorce, destruction and indescribable grief. That’s been my experience. I could choose to have a few friends, kindred spirits, and keep it at that. Then go to a church where I can remain anonymous, get my liturgical fix and go home to my buddies afterwards. But no. That’s not me.
Or I could just keep faith out of my relationships altogether. Don’t even bring it up. But unfortunately faith isn’t just a hobby with me, an intellectual pursuit, a passing interest, an anthropological obsession. Somehow, faith, spirit, religion, relationship with I AM, has gripped my life to such an extent that it’s become essential to who I am. It is integral. To neglect it or deny it or suppress it in my relationships would be at least inauthentic and at worst suicidal. I can’t stand relating on a superficial level, pretending to be something I’m not pretending you’re someone you’re not. I have to be all out there or not at all. I resist becoming a rubber stamp endorsing what others do just to avoid conflict and make the mood in the room comfortable. I wish not to dial down just to stay in relationship with someone. And this has brought me the loss of many, many friends. It continues to happen to this day. And it tears my heart out every single time.
Let’s see: keep friends but deny who I am and live on a superficial level; or live freely as who I am and risk the loss of relationship? Believe me, the choice is a difficult one.
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David Hayward is a pastor artistically stripping to the essential.
Dang brother!!! I hear you loud and clear…it is a hard road, but I, too, am learning that to stand for Christ is to stand apart. I am also learning that, though the truth of who I am and who I am becoming is not necessarily agreeable to some, there is a measure of respect and envy that I am being who I have been called to be and they, perhaps, are not. I pray that each of my friends would become all that God has called them to be and perhaps by my resolve, it will awaken the courage in them to step out…
The temporary loss of their friendship may be what is needed to gain their eternal brother/sisterhood! Take heart…I fully believe the Lord will bless you in overflowing abundance for your loyalty, your faith, your obedience to Him! Psalm 73:25
Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
Psalm 73:24-26 (in Context) Psalm 73 (Whole Chapter)
Smiles, prayers, and blessings to you!
mp:)
I have walked here many times recently. In my church. The ministry I serve in. It’s hard for me to be anything but what the Creator created. I don’t fit the mold that they think I should fit into. It ’s hard to stand among and desire to serve with those that just don’t get authentic…or can’t handle real. It is a very very hard thing to keep going. I needed this today. Thanks for letting me hear again that it’s ok to not be a ‘rubber stamp’ ’susie spiritual’. I also feel as tho I just want to say F**K it all and go my own way…..but I don’t think that it’s time or the season yet. Hugs!
“keep friends but deny who I am and live on a superficial level;or live freely as who I am and risk the loss of relationship” – NP
Can I say that you seem genuine and sincere on this blog and people respect and like you. Whatever you choose, some people will like it, others won’t.
But what are you worried about? Who do wake up to every morning, them or you? Your life is art and beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Every warrior of the light has been afraid to enter a combat.
Every warrior of the light has betrayed and lied in the past.
Every warrior of the light has lost faith in the future.
Every warrior of the light has trodden a path which was not his own.
Every warrior of the light has suffered because of unimportant things.
Every warrior of the light has doubted that he is a warrior of the light.
Every warrior of the light has failed in his spiritual obligations.
Every warrior of the light has said yes when he meant no.
Every warrior of the light has hurt someone he loved.
That is why he is a warrior of the light:
He has endured all this, and not lost the hope to improve.
- Paulo Coelho
definitely hear ya on the whole faith not being a hobby for me. relationships are painful. but where there are sorrows, there will be joy. relationships are necessary but require all sorts of sacrifices, often unforeseen, unexperienced. they require growth, apart, together, and an awareness of oneself. but that is why they are so necessary. it is too hard to walk alone, and we learn so much more together. and together, we will falter sometimes. accountability is big. and when i’m only held accountable to myself, well…
i picture this in my head. a bunch of planks meeting at a point at the top, being held up by each other, overlapping. all are being burdened by another, all are burdening another. but at the bottom of this pyramid is what matters the most. it can be the strongest or the weakest, guaranteeing not a painless walk but a solid walk.
you’re absolutely right. to put it away, to keep it in the “private sphere” so to speak is to deny oneself. you know who you are and where your real identity is. to keep it hidden is to keep you hidden and the one who has showed you the greatest love there is. all of us.
and no, love isn’t shying away from confrontation. love is risking the other’s good opinion of us. it is acting for the good of all, the good of another, and not to maintain others’ opinions of us.
Right now I’m not as trusting as you all appear to be. Fool me once…
Good sense coming from Wilfred; also good sense from the evolutionary and positive psychologists, who can demonstrate that everyone is hardwired to feel pain and pleasure, everyone is stuffed full of stones and feathers both.
It depends what you expect from life in Christ: all feathers? all stones? Both options are preached from time to time. But I’d hazard a guess that the transcendence Christ brings endorses both the pleasure and pain of life, and in that sense, Church is absolutely no different from anywhere else.
Thank God.
Thanks Dave…Im right where Tara is at…all I can do is keep on keeping on and remember that I have an audience of one at the end of it all. Its a hard walk but hang in there. I have also found that where one loses friends, one gains new ones in the most unbelievable ways and unlikely of places, bu they are people that understand and support one and I guess thats God’s reassurance to us in the toughest of times…
I concur. I’ve lost friendships over matters of faith & doctrine as well. I can’t remain quiet. I cannot bury my soul. But, sometimes I wonder if there isn’t an element of pride to it. Must I prove myself right: must I make others see it my way: is there a way to differ but remain in peace? Can’t we speak the truth without compromise, meanwhile bearing with one another? I wish I knew how.