Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes in Life Together:
"Genuine community is born only after we are first overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others...and if we are fortunate, with ourselves. By sheer grace, God will not permit us to live even for a brief period in a dream world... Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God's sight...The sooner this shock of disillusionment comes to an individual and to a community the better for both. A community which cannot bear and survive such a crisis, which insists upon keeping its illusion when it should be shattered, permanently loses in that moment the promise of Christian community. Sooner or later it will collapse."
Only when we accept the limitations of our own love can we receive a greater love outside of ourselves. Only when we come to the end of our powers to love, and hang on, can a greater power be released. Eventually the shock of mutual disappointment becomes not a big deal, and forgiveness and repenting become a new way of life.
To experience the joyful mystery of community is to practice a love that mirrors the divine. To paraphrase 1 John 4:10, "This is love, not that jerkface loved me first, or stopped being a jerk, and therefore became worthy of my love, but that I-- a jerk myself-- served and loved jerkface." Chris Rice
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