The real me makes me happy!
Last weekend I was at a wedding in Atlanta. I had a fabulous time enjoying the company of friends and new friends, with activities galore and conversation most of which started out light hearted and eventually evolved into the point where we could be real with one another. This happens when you spend a significant amount of time with someone with whom you enjoy spending a significant amount of time.
At the end of my time away I talked to Carie on the phone and we talked for a while I was waiting for some transportation to move me toward Worcester. Carie, always being sensitive to the way I feel and act, mentioned that I sounded really happy. I told her that I was, and for two reasons. First of all I couldn’t wait to return to my amazing wife. She completes me in every way, and I am always able to be the real me when I’m with her. Second, during the weekend I was able to completely be the real me, in community with a group of guys who accepted the person I am.
Something I’m pondering this week is how to create this type of community outside of a special weekend, retreat, or organized activity. At our suburban churches in America we get all excited about that weekend away from everything. That Promise Keepers or Women of Faith event that will definitely take us to the next level, and for what? So that we can go back to our caged in lives of plastic smiley faces and non authentic words, pretending that we don’t have problems, opinions, or a desire to figure out what it’s all about? Our world won’t be changed until we take the transforming power of God away from the occasional weekend away and move it into the “normal every day life”.
So at Fellowship that’s what we’re trying to find out – how to have authentic community in a world and a culture where we’re trained to be – I’m sorry – to look perfect. So that at the end of every week I can come home from work or basketball or whatever it is I might be doing with my time and my wife can say, “Wow, you’re happy”. And I can respond,
