Sacred Scarred

Love Hurts

I've often heard it said that to love someone is to see them at their very worst and to love them anyway.  I knew that Jen loved me when I told her things about myself that I had never told anyone and she didn't leave.  A lot of the "we're in love" feelings disappear when things get ugly.  Infatuated couples who have only experienced good times only have half the picture (perhaps less that half).  This has been on my mind for the last few weeks as a new baby in our lives has caused stress, loss of sleep, and a renegotiation of time management, roles, and priorities.  Things get ugly from time to time.  Jen and I are real good at hurting each other with our words (especially when we are running on near empty).  I'm married to her - I know what hurts her and I (ashamedly) use it to hurt her (and vise versa).  And yet we still love each other - even in the midst of difficulty and hurt - we still love each other deeply.  I once heard it said that a great love opens us up to a great pain.  I think God gets that.

Alan Hartung on his blog "A Different Perspective" talks about the Soularize Gathering in the Bahamas last week and he writes about speaker (and author) Brennan Manning...

He said a lot of great things, and one of them I just had to write down. To make sure I remember it even more, I want to post the quote.

“How can you say you love me, if you don’t know what hurts me?”

The point was that Jesus loves us and that loves includes knowing what hurts his people. And it made me think about not only how much Jesus loves me but how much I love others. Am I so self-centered that I only think the things that hurt me hurt other people? Many things that hurt other people don’t bother me at all… and, of course, vice versa. Those I say I love, do I know what hurts them? How deep is my love?

Individuality Eclipsed

Our new cell met last night for the first time.  Four of us got together to learn about each other and about Jesus.  We did both.  It was good.

We talked a lot about our own tendencies to over-emphasize "figuring out God's will for my life", realizing that we far too often miss out on what God is doing in the present in order to figure out the future.  Perhaps (we concluded), God would rather have us be faithful to the present than stress over "his will".  And perhaps we are way too focused on ourselves.  We also talked about the role of community in determining God's call and whether or not we personally gave a community of people the authority to be the voice of Jesus in our lives. 

We left pondering this Richard B. Hays quote...thought I'd share it with you...

The community is the primary addressee of God's imperatives. If the biblical story focuses on God's design for forming a covenant people then the primary sphere of moral concern is not the character of the individual, but the corporate obedience of the church. Paul's formulation in Rom 12:1-2 encapsulates the vision: "Present your bodies [somata, plural] as a living sacrifice [thysian, singular], holy and well-pleasing to God. And do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…." The community, in its corporate life, is called to embody an alternative order that stands as a sign of God's redemptive purposes in the world. This is the concrete social manifestation of the righteousness of God. The coherence of Paul's ethical teaching comes into focus only when we understand that he is consistently formulating the ethical mandate in ecclesial [church] terms, seeking God's will not by asking first, "What should I do?" but" What should we, as God's people, do?"

Should have blogged this before now...

...but who has time between work and starting a new cell and changing diapers, etc. (obviously I haven't blogged much recently)...

Grayson Walker Hulfish was born to Jen and I on October 8, 2007.  He weighed 7 lbs, 15 oz., and was 21 inches tall.  He's a beautiful little boy (and I'd post pictures, but I don't have any available today).  Big sister Riley is really good at being a big sister!

Will be back blogging soon.  I'm often too tired to produce coherent thoughts.

Free Burma!