10.3.09

Excuse the catch up blog, but that what this week has been for me since getting back from vacation. This past Tuesday night I was blessed to be able to teach a spirituality class to about 20 women living at Mending Hearts – a transitional living facility for women in recovery. Over the past several months I’ve been buying up used copies of The Road Less Travelled, by M. Scott Peck. It seems unbelievable to me but I’ve been able to buy about 20 copies for $.25 each (that’s a quarter). For a book with the wisdom found in jus the first 3 pages, that is too good a deal to pass up. If you don’t have a copy, go buy one. We spent an hour on the first 3 pages and the conversation, insight and confessions were amazing. Here’s a summary of what Peck says:

“…Life is a series of problems…Discipline is the basic set of tools we require to solve life’s problems..What makes life difficult is that the process of confronting and solving problems is a painful one…It is through the pain of confronting and resolving problems that we learn…Fearing the pain involved, almost all of us, to a greater or lesser degree, attempt to avoid problems…This tendency to avoid problems and the emotional suffering inherent in them is the primary basis of all human mental illness…let us teach ourselves the necessity for suffering and the value thereof, the need to face problems directly and to experience the pain involved… The four tools of discipline: delaying gratification; acceptance of responsibility; dedication to the truth; balancing… the will to use them which is love”
The Road Less Travelled, M. Scott Peck

One of the effects of teaching is that the teacher is influenced as much (maybe even more) than the students. To be privileged to be trusted enough to have some of these women feel free enough to tell their stories and then ask for advice is true “holy ground” for me.

Wed night I was invited to speak at the Natchez Trace Church of Christ. They were interested in hearing more about Otter Creek’s work in the homeless community with the idea of how they might become more involved. I have presentation that I have used at churches for similar invitations. But earlier that day something told me to think about a different topic. The idea of really counting the cost of following Jesus came to my mind. There’s a big difference in being a believer and being a follower of Jesus. It costs a lot to be a follower. Jesus talked about that in Luke 14. It’s an uncomfortable passage, one of those that we like to rationalize and generalize and compromise to say it really doesn’t mean what it says. But I really think it does. As individuals and churches get wind of opportunities to reach out it becomes the responsibility of leadership to count the cost. If we’re not ready to be a follower of Jesus then be careful about jumping in. It gets messy real fast - in lots of ways. It’s good to be a believer of Jesus. We need more followers.

And Friday night about 40 members of Otter Creek visited The Temple to worship with and celebrate Succkot with our Jewish brothers and sisters. It was an incredible time of worship and hospitality. This all started thanks to an art exhibit by an Otter Creek member featuring Tent City which a few folks from The Temple heard about and were convicted enough that they reached out to us to inquire about being able to have the exhibit at their building. Over the past 8 weeks we’ve had their group to Otter Creek, visited Tent City together and talked about how our two congregations might work together to help address this need. I’m surprised by the publicity and surprise this conversation has gotten from the public. When the focus is on the people in need and not own our own agendas and prejudices it makes all the sense in the world to join together. As we come together we see many more areas of agreement than we might otherwise if we stayed separate. While we don’t shy away from the fact that there are some fundamental beliefs that we may never agree on, I am sure that this is partnership is something that Jesus would be involved in. Based on that, we move forward