life in community

"Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family."
-Henri Nouwen

If everybody believed this, think of what life would be like.  If everybody lived this, think of what the church would be like.
This year, I am creating more of my own life than I ever have before.  Living in an apartment opens up so many more questions about community, food, balancing time, and how to navigate the little choices that make up our days.  I believe there are many things that are essential to a healthy community, and one of them is a personal awareness that "I am not perfect, and neither is anybody else".  There are many, many times when I love poorly, but there is something so beautiful and blessed about this fellowship of the weak.

I've been feeling increasingly convicted to spend my life living in intentional community.  I need other people to help me struggle with life decisions and conscious living.  It would be far too easy to close myself into a comfortable bubble of this-is-my-life-and-this-is-how-i-do-things.  So this year, I am beginning to share my life and choices with seven other people who also care deeply for the entirety of God's creation and about following in Jesus's footsteps.

I'm reading The Irresistible Revolution for the second time, and it is hard to live with.  It is good and encouraging and inspiring, but it leaves me with a growing sense that if I were to truly follow the call of the gospel, my life would look nothing like this.  It would look a whole lot more like giving up material possessions, living among the less privileged, and finding Jesus in the eyes of those who are "different" from me.

As I told one of my roommates recently, most days I don't know what to do or how to make my life everything it should be, but I'm committed to figuring it out.  And every time I am struck by my complete and utter inconsistency, I am reminded of God's immeasurable faithfulness.  He is everything I am not.