Admittedly, I haven’t blogged for over a week. There is something about trying to get the porch railing painted before winter, getting ready for two weeks away from the office, keeping up with the start-up of fall activities AND adopting a new canine member of the family that has me a bit overwhelmed. Yes, there are now four of us on the couch.
That means our community in this household has enlarged. Our canine and human bodies are squeezed together on the couch where we watch the Va Tech football game. And even now, in an upstairs bedroom/study/India room, I am sitting in the middle of the futon with my drink inconveniently on the floor and a dog on either side of me in my effort to be fair about this. One dog, who has walked from D.C. to Pittsburgh with me, is curled gratefully next to me, glad that some things never change. The other dog, shakes and twitches in her sleep for long stretches of time, not yet relaxed in this strange household, trying desperately to adjust to new surroundings and expectations.
Two mixed hound dogs, two mixed-up humans, trying to live together in a newly enlarged community. Who will sneak whose food? Who won’t be home for supper? Who will sleep where? Who has a new name? Who knows the routines and what, after all, are the expectations of one another? Do you like canned dog food? Do you like my dry food? Shall we let her know that you drink the milk out of my cereal bowl? How does a human remember morning prayers while walking two dogs, one of which pulls like a bat out of hell?
Community changes us and God teaches us through those changes. Christ seems to like being especially present in changing communities. He once prayed for his followers, who were about to experience the tremendous change of his death/resurrection/ascension: “I made your name known to them, (he prays to the Father), and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17)
Christ is in new community. Christ’s love is for four on a couch who are trying to adjust to one another. Christ’s love is in a congregation, a denomination, trying to adjust to new expectations and different understandings of what those expectations are. Oh, Christ, pray for us! We in congregations have such a hard time enlarging the pew. Not that we mind more bodies, but we fear what change is asked of us in order to love an enlarged community.
jnkuebler says
Thank you for these reflections on the messiness (and also the rightness) of expanding the family circle. I am reminded of themes in the Disney movie “Lilo and Stitch”, and commend this to you if you don’t already know it.
Elaine Dent says
What a great idea for a movie to take along on vacation.