More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
April 26, 2017 - May 8, 2020
What does loneliness tell us about ourselves? Be it chronic or acute, slight or significant, loneliness is proof of our relational design. At the core of our being is this truth—we are designed for and defined by our relationships.
We are relational beings because we are created in the image of a relational God.
We must be mindful of emotions in order to understand and change how we relate. Not every emotion needs expression, but every emotion needs recognition.
there are three ingredients to our story—the events that happened, the emotions we felt in light of the events, and the interpretation we (unconsciously) made in light of the events and emotions.
Our stories are part of God’s ongoing redemptive story. He already knows our story…
It is God’s redemptive story
Their mistrust expressed in self-reliance and self-determination birthed shame, fear and guilt. These inhibiting emotions, once exaggerated, would disrupt and damage their ability to engage in soulful relationships with God and each other.
Like them, we mistrust the goodness of God.
When we are preoccupied with maintaining an image that the soul was not created to maintain, we grow emotionally weary.
emotions—shame,
How does thinking of sin as a state of reactive mistrust change the way you look at yourself?
The source of deep transformation is the particular presence of Christ.
???
he minored in advice and double-majored in encouragement and perspective.
We must participate in his life so that his life becomes our life. As the apostle Paul wrote, “For me to live is Christ” (Philippians 1:21 ESV). This is the life God designed and desires for us. This is the only life that heals us of the wounds inflicted on us by others.
the way to true-self living is not through creative effort but through surrender to the God whose arms are open to us. True-self
We trust who God has made us to be in Christ, and we live from that solid, anchored, true reality. We receive others into the grace we have received and now live in. We forgive because we are forgiven. We bless because we are blessed. We love because we are loved. As we do this we bear the presence of God to others (2 Corinthians 2:14; 5:20). God’s grace and truth empowers us to grow beyond our pretensions, our posturing and our protectiveness of idealized goodness. We live as wounded healers. We are open to others, able to be seen, able to be heard and able to be known. We grow in the
...more
Henri Nouwen describes the receptivity of true-self living with the word hospitality. He notes that the essential movement of the soul is from hostility (the reactive false self) to the radical Christlike posture of hospitality (the receptive true self). “Hospitality, therefore, means primarily the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place.”2
The greatest gift any of us can give another is a transforming, receptive presence. Programs, policies, strategy sessions, staff meetings and even sermons will be long forgotten.
The redemptive work of Christ’s re-creation invites the real me to live in a renewed state of being. This formation process can only happen through a receptive, participatory, relational experience with the receptive, relational God. Participating in his life teaches me new patterns of thinking, feeling, desiring, choosing and behaving.
True-self living requires the willingness to embrace and tell our story.
Our interpretation will dictate how we engage relationally.
As we see and own our story in the loving presence of another, our interpretations are transformed.
Such a significant reinterpretation of life requires a deep trust in a God who is for us. It rests on trusting God’s story.
she had no idea where she would be without the community of faith,
Her life would have remained a relational mess without the loving presence of others.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer so powerfully wrote, “He who loves his dream of community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.”2
Suffering has no answers. But it does carry an invitation.
Her transformation took place because she was in a healthy community.
Community is a grand invitation to surrender,
Disciplines set the soul on the path where it can come to know God and live present to others in love. If disciplines become the end game, they will become empty rituals that will leave the soul narrowed and parched.
It is impossible to be with someone if we are not able to be with ourselves.
