I am a part of a stubborn community of people. But I’m thankful for that. It is partially because of our stubbornness that we are still here. But I’m thankful for it for another, more important, reason: they will not be coerced into doing something they don’t want just to fulfill some expectation, no matter how virtuous or noble.
The pressure to envision the community as something better or even other than what it is is inescapable and constant. My community, however, demands to be recognized and appreciated for what it is. For who they are! I always compare it to a loving relationship. If I constantly want my wife to look like Angelina Jolie, have sex with me every day, and worship the ground I walk on, then my expectations are eventually going to kill me and her. I will resent the fact that my fantasies are never fulfilled, and she will resent the fact that she herself is never loved. We will end up in divorce court because I refuse to see her, respect her and love her as she is, and she refuses to conform to my fantasies of my imaginary her.
I almost daily have to purge my mind of expectations, objectives, dreams, visions, goals and fantasies about my community or it will destroy me with disappointment , resentment and bitterness. The same for the community. If they constantly feel like they are never measuring up to my dreams for them, it will end in disaster. But the temptation is real because this is precisely how I was trained to oversee communities! This is how almost every community functions. And it is killing people and community. To unconditionally love these people as they are and this community as it is… that’s my commitment.
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David Hayward is an artist trapped in a pastor's body, stripping to the essential.
Nobody likes to be coerced. We’ll always find ways to subvert the coercive process–usually in passive aggressive ways.
i’ve known tons of people who LOVE to be coerced in the name of some spiritual program. LOVE it!
Agreed. Many prefer coercion – freedom from personal responsibility, always someone else to blame and it requires no real relationship. Pete Rollins tweeted today, “The real challenge is not in making the initial sacrifice, but in sacrificing the perverse pleasure1gets from making the sacrifice.” The trick isn’t being community it’s giving up trying to form community.
This is one fantastic post!
Profound thoughts. Relationally significant and profound!
thanks David
Well said.
As I’ve mentioned, I recently left a place that’s in the midst of this sort of thing. I occasionally hear how it’s going – I suppose all the people who stay are “on board”. I sometimes feel like a failure because I wasn’t and am not.
You’ve put your finger on precisely what I feel, tho I dare say my version of it is less noble than this sounds. The sweeping away, the failure to recognise all that’s gone before, the drive to fit into the vision, the invitation to leave if you want to. It’s just not loving.
Love it.