This kind of life is challenging me to the point of action. I am in awe of how I am so often humbled. Just when I think I know what life is about, I am reminded of my inability to live as I so believe I should, as well as my total ignorance. To live in a interdependant community with the core value of loving one another to life is very hard. We are called to pick up our cross daily, and we expect it to be comfortable.
This is where the magic of the upside-down Kingdom is giving me hope of some undiscovered freedom (for me at least), where when you have given everything and loved in every situation ( a very painful duty) you find the true life.
Love suffers long and is kind... and all those beautiful attributes I have always looked upon as cute. The type of stuff that are mostly hung up on the walls of Vrystaters or pasted on bumpers of fancy cars.
"It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." - C.S.Lewis
Shane Clairborne says in his book THE IRRESISTIBLE REVOLUTION, after leaving his comfortable living and choosing to live amongst lepers in Calcutta for a couple of weeks.
"I learned from lepers that leprosy is a disease of numbness. The contagion numbs the skin and the nerves can no longer feel as the body wastes away. In fact, the way it was detected was by rubbing a feather across the skin, and if the person could not feel it, they were diagnosed with the illness. To treat it, we could dig out or dissect the scarred tissue until the person could feel again. As I left Calcutta, it occurred to me that I was returning back to a land of lepers, a land of people who had forgotten how to feel, to laugh, to cry, an land haunted by numbness. Could we learn to feel again?"
What gives me hope is that I cannot love. I too am screaming for acceptance, recognition and a deep understanding love, that knows my heart and enjoys it. And that is exactly what Jesus is offering to me. To step into His love, daily. To renounce every lie I have ever believed of myself and to believe His truth. That I am made in His image to Glorify Him.
It is when I step into His covering that I discover inner peace. The screaming stops and I can ease into the powerfully tender love, that loves me even in my darkest place. That is when I could start experiencing the sweet need to give this normal-life-threatening love to those I see screaming. I can start loving, because He has first loved me.
Mary could effortlessly flow into Martha, because her strength comes from a bottomless source. She is fulfilled to the point of overflow. This has become such a stale saying without true understanding.
Being an intern for an extremely serving community, has quickly forced me to start understanding this. The guilt of using God faded away, because He called me to tap into His endless supply.
In this book, THE IRRESISTIBLE REVOLUTION, he also speaks of our stealing away from the opportunities for miracles. Jesus fed the masses with a handful of food, because there was no food. He had the opportunity to turn water into wine, because there was no more wine. We are so secured by money that we never let Him feed us and thanking Him for our paid-for-food has become somewhat stale.
To my great relief, I am starting to realize to fall full force into being loved by The Lover, seeing the need in my neighbor and loving does not necessarily have to be massive. It could be small deeds with massive love. I just have to make peace with It that I am not going to be a big deal or going to do big things. Challenged with the upside-down- last-will-be-first-thing.
Comments
You shine , ma petit.
from ur brazilian brother, and favorite reader.