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Cliques, Community and Confusion

I’ve been involved in small groups for a little over 16 years. When I first started attending my first guys group, in The Glen across from campus, it didn’t take me long to recognize that there was a group of guys that all knew one another and then there were the rest of us. They knew each other well! I really knew no one so I knew I’d have to find someone soon to even attempt to stick it out. I gravitated towards a couple of guys at first. But the longer I attended I felt like there were a couple of guys in the group with which I might have some things in common. It was all but impossible!

These guys already had their circle that had been formed over a couple of years. They had all been in Intervarsity since freshman year, had attended multiple small groups, been on various retreats and had grown to understand each other at a deeper level. I knew that these types of relationships had to form over time and never happened automatically, but it seemed that I wasn’t even getting a shot. I could tell when they talked to me it was totally surface and like they were doing ministry by us having any conversation.

I eventually broke through with those guys mainly by one of them graduating, moving back home and the rest of them asking me to move in to the house they were going to rent out. I learned much about them and they learned much about me. But I never really figured out why it had to take me moving in for us to become friends.

Jump forward a little over a decade and I found myself running into something very similar. There was a crew of people that Jo and I went to church in Wilmington with that I could definitely see us hanging out with. And try as we might, it just never happened. As I’ve intimated before, I was in a spiritual desert at this point in my life, so no one was ever going to really want to be around that. I completely understand. There are few who are going to man up to me and let me know that it’s time to have some integrity. So, why would you want to subject yourself to something you’re never going to have the strength to help change? I get it.

But I wanted it. I wanted to be a part. I saw so many things we all had in common. I knew if they could only hang out with us a handful of times they’d see how sweet and fun Jo was and how dry and witty I could be, if not extremely observant.

It was not to be. So per my normal reaction, I detested them. I lashed out whenever an opportunity presented itself. I was even friends with one of the girls in college, but found myself completely pushing her away and making myself socially distant and unavailable when we were around one another. I really was the worst! A complete tool.

I hated that they were all in community with one another. It was a clique and I hate cliques.

But do I? Do I really hate groups of people that have much in common and are extremely tight with one another? Groups that do life with one another and know one another’s struggles? Groups that share in one another’s joys and triumphs?

No. I only hate when it excludes me. And that’s the crux of it. I hate to be left out. I hate feeling like I didn’t do enough, wasn’t cool enough, witty enough, talented enough or whatever it is I try to do or be. It’s completely narcissistic. It’s totally self-serving.

Since then I’ve really struggled with the line between being in community, a real authentic community, and offering yourself in a group of people you don’t know at all, where all of your relationships involve surface level conversations and feel like ministry. I think both are good and possibly necessary. But we only have so much time in a week! What do we do then? I’m not sure.

Community is good though. Even if it doesn’t involve me.

To be stewed over a little longer…

Job

I don’t like Rob Bell. But someone suggested I read Whirlwind from Nooma. And though the guy is incredibly divisive, I really like this statement of his on the wisdom of Job.

Sometimes the only honest, healthy, human thing to possibly do is to shout your question and shake your fist and rage against the heavens and demand an explanation. But the wisdom, the kind we find here with Job – the kind that endures, the kind that sustains a person through suffering – that kind of wisdom knows when to speak and when to be silent. Because your story is NOT over. The last word has NOT been spoken. And there may be way more going on here than any of us realize. So may you be released from always having to know why everything happens the way that it does. May this freedom open you up to all sorts of new perspectives. And may you have the wisdom to know when to say, “I spoke once, but now I will say no more.

We Bought a Zoo

We just saw ‘We Bought a Zoo’. A great little feel-good movie. Jo cried through most of it. I teared up a couple of times as well. While the movie was great, the soundtrack was actually better! There is an official soundtrack done by Jonsí, but this is the complete soundtrack in the movie.

“Don’t Come Around Here No More” – Tom Petty
“Do It Clean” – Echo & The Bunnymen
“Airline To Heaven” – Wilco
“Don’t Be Shy” – Cat Stevens
“Go Do” – jónsi
“Living With The Law” – Chris Whitley
“Last Medicine Dance” – Mike McCready
“Buckets of Rain” – Bob Dylan
“No Soy Del Valle” – Quantic Presenta Flowering Inferno
“Sinking Friendships” – jónsi
“Like I Told You” – Acetone
“Ashley Collective” – Mike McCready
“For A Few Dollars More” – The Upsetters
“Hunger Strike” – Temple Of The Dog
“Ævin Endar” – jónsi
“Mariachi El Bronx” – Mariachi El Bronx
“Haleakala Sunset” – CKsquared
“Boy Lilikoi” – jónsi
“Cinnamon Girl” (Live) – Neil Young
“Holocene” – Bon Iver
“Throwing Arrows” – Mike McCready
“Work To Do” – The Isley Brothers
“All Your Love (I Miss Loving)” – Otis Rush
“I Think It’s Going To Rain Today” – Randy Newman
“Hoppípolla” – Sigur Rós
“Gathering Stories” – jónsi

Crazy Love: Profile of the Lukewarm

From Francis Chan’s book Crazy Love:

In the United States, numbers impress us. We gauge the success of an event by how many people attend or come forward. We measure churches by how many members they boast. We are wowed by big crowds.
Jesus questioned the authenticity of this kind of record keeping. According to the account in Luke chapter 8, when a crowd started following Him, Jesus began speaking in parables – “so that” those who weren’t genuinely listening wouldn’t get it.
When crowds gather today, speakers are extra concious of communicating in a way that is accessible to everyone. Speakers don’t use Jesus’ tactic to eliminate people who are not sincere seekers.

The Windmill Farmer

Sacrifice

This quote was posted by my friend Steph, on 9/11/11:

“– we can not hallow, this ground– The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have hallowed it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here; while it can never forget what they did here.” –Abraham Lincoln