People Matter...

Really... they do. You would not believe this statement as you drive down the highway, stand in line at the market, read the news, or toil at work. The human is now a limiting factor in the equation of business, politics, warfare, and even religion.

I am continuously burdened at my work by the way that I am not treated like I matter. And, I am not trying to be selfish, or say that "hey, what about me." But you know what I am talking about. I even have the "privilege" (if you can call it that)of working for an organization that prides itself on caring for its people...and they do, it's just that their idea of caring for people is not based upon the reality of being human. And yes, this bothers me...I have a tough time with it...it makes me tired...all the time.

However, every now and then I get a glimpse of the Glorious eternity that God has in store for us...and that glimpse comes through community. Community comes in many forms, but what is especially meaningful to me is the community that I share with close friends. Electra and I have been blessed with an albeit small, but heavily concentrated community of phenomonal friends. These folks have become family and in doing so have opened themselves up to us in a way that exposes both themselves and us as well in a vulnerable manner. We laugh, cry, drink fine wine, and LIVE together.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his small, but influential book LIFE TOGETHER remarks that "Christ lived in the midst of HIs enemies. So the Christian too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life, but in the thick of foes." How I wish that I could live the cloistered life! But that is not where I am called to be right now...maybe later...But how important it is therefore to gather community around you! Bonhoeffer goes on to say that "Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more or less than this. Whether it be a brief, single encounter or the daily fellowship years, Christian community is only this. We belong to one another only through and in Jesus Christ." Isn't that freeing!

It is through the Covenant relationships that we have been blessed with that enables the sacrament of Communion becomes most real. The sharing of life through death has become real. As we bear one anothers burdens we die unto ourselves and recieve the life giving reality of freindship. Though we live in a fallen world, and all here is lost. It is the moments with close friends that are shared through good times and bad, great conversation, and babies crying that we are able to glimpse eternity and be reminded that yes...Virginia, people really do matter.