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January 23, 2006
> 11:01 AM
commitment Is this an issue with you? I think it is for a lot of people. I'm not really talking specifically about marriage, although that would certainly be connected to all this I suppose. In this case, specifically, I'm talking and thinking about commitment to a faith community - to a "church." Have you even made a commitment to a community like this? Have you ever even thought about it? I wonder if, in our present ecclesiastical culture, we even consider it something the deserves thinking about. I have the notion that we don't. The practice of "church hopping" is rampant among protestant evangelicals and charismatics. I think it's becoming more so among Catholics - don't like Fr. Tommy over at St. Agnes? Go to Mass over at Christ the King, that Fr. Jim is much more personable. The sickness spreads. Lots of people never think one way or another about finding a "spiritual family" or "home" as such. Mostly what we seem to think about is a place to "go to church." That's where you worship God and do your duty to Him, so you find a place you "like" and go there. To think of that being your family and making a commitment to these people in this place is not on our radar for the most part I don't think. That's unfortunate. I'm not sure it was designed that way. Well, I know it wasn't but I was trying to be nice. We aren't supposed to be just floating around, never landing anywhere. We're supposed to be grounded in a Christian community. Plants don't just wander around the top of the ground from place to place, sticking their roots in a bit, taking it back out and moving along to the next patch of ground. They are PLANTED. The are planted and grow and take root in a specific piece of ground and their roots then go deep. It has to be that way or the plant will die. It would never get enough nourishment for enough time. Of course, then, there is the discussion that will naturally arise over "good ground" vs. "bad soil." Given. That is absolutely relevant and needful. But find ground, good ground, and be planted. We'll leave the discussion of how to find such a place for another time. I've recently written some things for our community, vine & branches, about these kinds of things. We've started talking about what it means to be a part of this community - what it looks like and will look like. There are different "commitment levels" and stages of entry. We've had some of this in place for a while, in writing, but haven't so much focused on it's actual implementation until now. It seemed time to move more in this direction, so I'm moving. It's a bit different, saying and talking about this kind of commitment. People aren't used to it. It causes just a little bit of turmoil in the psyche I think. It does for me on this end - the end of the one drafting the "new" stuff, putting it out there, and working through the reactions. Everything takes work though in a community. That's not unusual. If you're small, up close and personal, it all hits home faster and somewhat harder than it would in a community of 200 or even 50. Quite a different dynamic. I'll refer back to my posts on the Monastic Parish model - here and here - for some connected thought. In moving toward this in earnest, I bring into a basically "parish" community some of the more "hard core" elements of monastic community life - and staged entry and commitment are some of these. In order to really become something that is different - in a good way I think - a community which will more effectively in the long run, facilitate our collective transformation - one must move in odd directions, or what seems odd. You have to go where you see you must go and that's not going to necessarily be all the comfortable for you or everyone else. We just have to work through it. Time to move up the hill leading to that mountain pass up there, out of the calm, still valley. Time to put our coats on, it gets chilly up there. Pray for us if you think about it. technorati tags > commitment, community, church, monastic, church hopping, stability Labels: church, community, monasticism 0 Comments:| permalink | e-mail me | 
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