A Word on Community

Have stuggled a long time with specifics of where I fit into the community I seem to have commited to over the last 4 years... Read this and was encouraged, but not justified...

Your unique presence in your community is the way God wants you to be present to others. Different people have different ways of being present. You have to know and claim your own way. That is why discernment is so important. Once you have an inner knowledge of your true voation, you have a point of orientation. That will help you to decide what to do and what to let go of, what to say and what to remain silent about, when to go out and when to stay home, who to be with and who to avoid.

When you get exausted, frustrated, overwhelmed, or run down, your body is saying that you are doing things that are none of your business. God does not require of you what is beyond your ablility, what leads you away from God, or what makes you depressed or sad. God wants you to live for others, and live that presence well. Doing so might include suffering, fatigue, and even moments of great physical or emotional pain, but none of this must ever pull you away from your deepest self and God.

You have not yet fully found your place in your community. Your way of being present to your community may require times of absence, prayer, writing, or solitude. These too are times for your community. They allow you to be deeply present to your people and speak words that come from God in you. When it is part of your vocation to offer your people a vision that will nurture them and allow them to keep moving forward, it is crucial that you give yourself the time and space to let that vision mature in you and become an integral part of your being.

Your community needs you, but maybe not as a constant presence. Your community might need you as a presence that offers courage and spiritual food for the journey, a presence that creates the safe ground in which others can grow and develop, a presence that belongs to the matrix of the community. But your community also needs your creative absence.

You might need certain things that the community cannot provide. For these you may have to go elsewhere from time to time. This does not mean that you are selfish, abnormal, or unfit for community life. It means that your way of being present to your people necessitates personal nurturing of a special kind. Do not be afraid to ask for these things. Doing so allows you to be faithful to your vocation and to feel safe. It is a service to those for whom you want to be a source of hope and a life-giving presence.

(Henri Nouwen, The Inner voice of Love)

I have spoken to many people that feel "left out" or better said, like an alien within the current church community. I kind of fit into that. This reading is freeing to me. Maybe my part is to grab others that need community and chuck them in, and go out again. Maybe my role is to set the mood for diferent atomspheres of worship and offering to God,maybe it is to just listen most of the time and learn from the everyday lives of those I thow in... Maybe my role it is to be who I am, and not worrie or become swayed by those who seem to know more than I do about myself and who I am. Funny thing is, God tells me things to. I know when I am doing what I am suppose to, and when i am not. So for all of you that dont quite know where you fit in, do what you love most, and when you find yourself on the edge of burn out, ask yourself what you are doing that is not a natural outpouring of who you are, do what God made you to do. THEN look beside you at people in your community who love to do the thing that burnt you out.

Work with me, this is a theory in action... not there myself!!!