From ghetto to garden..... Let's be the WE

“To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.”

― Søren Kierkegaard


 I have lived in ghettos.
Not the actual ones that reside within the homelands of our cities but ghetto is still the term that describes most perfectly.
Draw upon that image. Pause. Think. Picture.

Ghetto

Close your eyes. Let the words come in... Let the images come...



























It is good for me to reminisce.

It is good for me to think upon such things...

But what am I talking about...

I have not ever lived in an actual ghetto.  I have never had to touch the realities of danger or fear or poverty that come with such a life.  I have never had to lived in apartments where the wind howls in during the winter and the steam of the hot Summer days equate to violence.  I have never had to live in a physical ghetto.  I have chosen in the past to live in spiritual ones and there is truly comparisons beyond comparisons to be made.

I am not talking about interior places either.  These are actually places where we, as Christians, reside more than naught.  The ghettos of our specific denominations or non-denominations, the ghettos of our faith that scream be afraid.. don't touch.. don't look.. don't go....

The things I have heard as I have come to faith and spent decades in the church  .. we do it this way, we don't do that, we don't go there, they have it wrong...
The "they's," the "us's" the "DNA" comments that have even come out of my own mouth...

I would get glimpses to step away but then be pulled back, allured by the sense of belonging that it granted to be a part of an "us."

I remember once saying to someone who was about to plant a church within one such ghetto that I had lived within, that the things that empowered this person to step into the future would be the very things that were not exactly the "DNA," of the ghetto. Unbeknown to me the person had just come from a meeting where he had been told that they were concerned he wasn't of their ghetto enough.

Now I just shake my head.  Now I just grieve for my own participation within all that stupidity.  And the grief calls me forth to find a more excellent way.

A garden has fruit. A garden has vegetables. A garden has color.  A garden has variation.  A garden has life and growth and hope. It has its own weeds and manure of a different sort. Sadly there is no utopia.  But I would  chose a garden over a ghetto.

We know nothing of our Lord when we act more like the Pharisees he held contempt for; when we won't go into Samaria, when we don't touch the lepers, the tax collectors, the prostitutes.When the Protestants remain ignorant of their Catholic brothers and sisters. When non-denominational critique main line brothers and sisters.  When we in our ignorance think ourselves wise and we step away from today Zachesus'.  It's to their houses we are called to go, regardless of which "ghetto," we come from and where they reside.

I want to have the lepers, the women, the tax-collectors... I want to be where they are...

Think again. Close your eyes. Picture all you know or think you know of a ghetto.  What aspects of your faith communities operate as such?  Where is there poverty of belief? Of practice? Of love? Of cooperation? Where do we risk our sacred cows? Where do we challenge long held practices? Where do we ask the hard questions of ourselves and our beliefs?

I was saved by a visitation.  I can say like Paul in Galatians; "for I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ." (Galatians 1:12)  I believed nothing and yet out of desperation opened my  mouth to pray to an unknown deity.  He soundly introduced Himself that day... with light and presence and quite the display.  I knew five things that day... He shared that He indeed was God, that He had to do with Jesus Christ, the Cross, and the Bible and He was going to lead me somewhere where He would teach me more about Himself.  That was what was important for Him for me to know in those very first moments.  He does indeed exist.  His name and identity will be found in Jesus Christ. The cross is of utmost importance to Him as is His Word.  And more than anything He promised to lead me.  That is His job after all.. One of Holy Spirit's main tasks in this world is to lead us into all truth.

I didn't know what I didn't know in those days.  I would learn soon enough.

But what I have learned through 24 years and what I return to is mercy, justice and humility. There is a language we can all speak.  There is spiritual truth that reverberates throughout creation.  We must learn that language.

Jesus came and He touched those who the religious said should not be touched, those that would make Him unclean would touch Him.. He walked into places where who He was was questioned because He sat with those He sat with....  He overturned privately held tables that had been placed in His Father's home.

I don't know where or what my journey will comprise of... If asked even weeks ago about places I step into now I wouldn't have known what to answer...  But the quote that began all of this won't leave me alone...

“To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

I will lose my footing but I can not but lose myself except to Christ and more often then nought I have lost it to man's opinions and thoughts.  I lay down my life  and in that I chose to trust that His capacity to lead me is greater than anything else would be to deceive me....

I am willing to lose my way and my footing in the garden as to never live in the ghettos of men ever again.... the poverty of that mentality left me frail and weak and vulnerable.  He came for freedom, chastising those who would impinge upon the freedom of others.  He granted us free will to choose or not choose, and to explore and to create and to be like Him.  He did not grasp equality with His Father but became a servant for all that His Spirit would fall upon all.....

There is a way of life and liberty that honors Him and to that discovery I will lose myself... I will dwell in the garden of His hope and His life and His joy and His ways that are higher and more magnificent then anything we could think or imagine.....  He is so much bigger.. He is so much richer.. He is so much kinder than our narrow ghetto like ideologies.   His priestly prayer at the end of His life cried forth His greatest desire that we would be one as He and the Father are one... To that end I journey away from the confines of "us," and "them."  I hunger to find the WE... and I know that it too is bigger and brighter and more precious than anything I have ever thought or imagined....