6 March 2006

We are in a section of "The Covenanted Self" call "Othering with Grace and Courage.

...Paul envisions that members are bound together at the extremities of life, at the strong seasons of joy and sorrow where we live anyway, at those times when we are being exiled and brought home, crucified and raised to new life... It is the work of "joy and sorrow" that makes us timeful creatures, and not just effective, present tense automatons. Jesus is like that in his contacts with people. He works mostly at the extremities of peoples' lives, or by his presence he articulates and creates extremities where they thought none existed. Paul believes that an effective othering agent can indeed turn loose of his own sorrows and joys enough to attend to others, because in mothering intimacy and in holy transcendence we have had our own career of "joy and sorrow" fully valorized.

At the extremities of life it seems that we are at the place of vulnerability. Even if that extremity is "joy" we are wide open and extended emotionally. When we are vulnerable in one another's presence and we honor that place, the opportunity for becoming a community - one body - would likely grow. I particularly like the way Jesus is described as someone who "creates extremities where they thought none existed." We may indeed think none exist until our facades are pealed back and through story or action we find ourselves looking at ourselves with new eyes and...all of the sudden...our hearts are pierced and there opens a place for us to be connected to the extremities of others as they are now connected to the ones we could not see in ourselves. Having said that, it also occurred to me that I can be so lost in the "joy and sorrow" of my life that will not let myself enter into the lives of others. Rather than seeing my place and condition at the extremities as a potential place to encounter others in community, I can quickly retreat into myself and abandon the community. This can happen even if the others in the community attempt to draw us into the life of "joy and sorrow" that all of us experience and must share.

Connection: How will we each attempt to work at the extremities of life today - at the strong seasons of joy and sorrow? We can only find out be entering into them.

When you heal us, O God, you heal the whole community of your people and you bring us into a new place from which we begin to see our lives in union with those who once were beyond us because we often made ourselves beyond them. Grant us wisdom to reveal ourselves so that we can play together in the seasons of your love. Amen.