High Fives, Hand Shakes, and Chest Bumps -or- A Severe Case of the Communitas

"Take our caved-in-on-self energy, and turn it inside out."

This is who I want to be. I am not that yet... but I know that this is the way to be and I have tastes of it here and there. When I am in rhythm with this idea my life is at its best.

How do we turn ourselves inside out? Especially when there is this huge experience within church culture that is about the self? Where songs spew more "me's" and "I's" and "My's" than apple computer products and online friend networks combined. Where the sermons sound more like self-help books and spiritual experiences are most often offered up in single servings.

But then here is Christ-- the supposed center of all of this-- and he says, "Deny yourself."

"Don't worry about your junk so much!" He says. "What good does that do? How much better does that make your life?"

I want my life to be a story about the people around me. Maybe it is my affinity for the concept of "team" or maybe it is my accute awareness that I am not all that I might one day be, that I am broken, and incomplete, and that my story is only half-told. I am tired of me. I'm tired of so much energy pouring into my self. It remains so unsatisfying. If life is somethign that I am committing to doing, I want to do it in community, in relationship, in the context of the give and the take of human connections. I will get hurt. I will give hurt. I will understand and misunderstand. But I will live and laugh and love more than anything, because those things are the "what" that life is all about.

God, turn us inside out. Remind us to gaze outward, away from our own reflection in the mirror. Remind us to share life. May we share all things in community. Help us to carry each other's hurt, and help us to share each other's joys. May we laugh at each other's jokes more, may we listen to each other's stories more, may we look into each other's eyes more, and may we enjoy the rhythms of this life and the lives around us. More late nights of laughter and tables full of food. More glasses raised to toast and more secret hand shakes. More of You wherever You are to be found. Amen.