Each year our community has a retreat where we spend even more time (than usual) with each other having fun and developing our relationships. We skied, sledded, watched movies, played games, and, of course, had meetings. The theme for this year was “Real Not Ideal.” We started off the weekend by watching, An Ideal Husband which seemed an appropriate choice for our theme.
In our meetings we talked about how image today has become more important than substance. For example, actors and actresses prepare for hours with makeup and styling for a single scene in a movie. The viewer is given the impression, however, that these sharply looking people effortlessly appear with perfect hair and beautiful skin tones in even the most mundane of circumstances. A reality is painted for us that is touched up. We get so scripted into an image ethic that the normal almost seems vulgar to us. Real people with real blemishes are revolting.
This addiction to a perfection veneer extends beyond physical appearance. We want people to be perfect at everything. We want perfect conversationalists, perfect humanitarians, perfect organizers, perfect teachers, perfect brothers, perfect mothers, perfect sons, and perfect friends. We expect the ideal, and when we encounter the real we are disappointed and even outraged. And the search for community can fall victim to the same disease. We look for the ideal community, bothered that real people who make up the community are hindering the quest.
But an “ideal community” is an oxymoron. Community is about real people loving real people. It is a communion of people who make a home with each another. It’s not about rallying around a purpose or an ideal, but choosing one another as our great pursuit in life. Jean Vanier says:
“Commitment in a community is not primarily something active, like joining a political party or trade union. Those need militants who give their time and energy and are ready to fight. A Community is something quite different. It is the recognition by its members that they have been called by God to live together, love each other, pray and work together in response to the cry of the poor. And that comes first at the level of being rather than of doing. To accept being rooted in a community is more or less preceded by a recognition that you are already ‘at home’, that you are part of its body. It is rather similar to marriage; couples recognize that something has been born between them and that they are made for each other. It is only then that they are ready to commit themselves to marriage and remain faithful to each other.
So in community everything starts with this recognition of being in communion one with another; we are made to be together. You wake up one morning knowing that the bonds have been woven; and then you make the active decision to commit yourself and promise faithfulness, which the community must confirm.”
The second point in our membership covenant says that we must have “an assurance of being called to this body.” We don’t join our fellowship because it is the logical next thing to do in our Christian journey. We commit to these particular people because we believe that it is a personal mandate of God to do so. By affirming this point, everyone understands that God is the mediator of our relationships and our vow is to Him as much as it is to each other.
As an exercise in these truths, we each took turns recalling how individually we came to believe that God has called us to this body. It was inspiring hearing the different and unique stories of God’s guidance.
In our next session, “Living with Real People,” we focused on identifying the misbeliefs that cause problems in our relationships. Turning again to Jean Vanier we read this quote from Brokenness to Community:
“Community means caring: caring for people. Dietrich Bonhoeffer says: ‘He who loves community destroys community; he who loves the brethren builds community.’ A community is not an abstract ideal. We are not striving for perfect community. Community is not an ideal; it is people. It is you and I. In community we are called to love people just as they are with their wounds and their gifts, not as we would want them to be. Community means giving them space, helping them to grow. It means also receiving from them so that we too can grow. It is giving each other freedom; it is giving each other trust; it is confirming but also challenging each other. We give dignity to each other by the way we listen to each other, in a spirit of trust and of dying to oneself so that the other may live, grow and give.”
Dr. William Backus, in Learning to Tell Myself the Truth, lists ten key misbeliefs that cause many of our problems. We each picked one of those misbeliefs that we struggle with and then shared with the group how that surfaces in our relationships. Next we talked about what truths help us defeat those misbeliefs. Some asked the group for advice on how to think more truthfully so they can overcome the lies that can cause so much grief.
For our last session, “Committing to Real People,” we started by reading Jean Vanier again:
“Community life implies a personal commitment which is made real in meetings between people. But we are very quick to flee from these meetings. They frighten us, just because they commit us. We flee into administration, law, rules, the search for ‘objective truth’; we flee into work and activity. We flee from meeting people; we would rather do things for them. But if we are to love, we have to meet.”
For our exercise each member expressed their commitment to one another by reciting this vow:
“(Name), before God and this body I commit to you, and I want you to know (each person filling in their own promise or expression of love).
Someone shared that this exercise was like being before a firing squad of kindness. It took all morning for each person to share with each person. That’s a lot of permutations! It was incredibly edifying and moving to hear the commitment and love expressed by each one.
Our retreats are a highlight for us and we’re grateful that God has provided a way for us to have them. Community takes work, but that work can be really fun.