Grace in Community

When I was in seminary, I wrote these words, "My sister bought me my first yoga mat, a birthday gift during my last year of seminary. I began to come home after class and pop in my yoga tape. For twenty minutes, I stretched and breathed. I held strong poses, with my arms lifted to the heavens. Each time there was a magic moment when the instructor said, “now, with soft eyes, look up.” With soft eyes… perhaps it takes soft eyes to interpret what we read. Soft eyes make room for the peripheral. Soft eyes wonder where the end of one thing meets the beginning of another."

I've since learned that the "soft eyes" that I learned in yoga is called a drishti, a sanskrit word that means "vision, insight or even point of view." It's a gazing technique that helps with concentration while also offering clarity to the larger picture at hand.

I wrote those words in my master's thesis that I was certain would be published as a memoir. When I sent it to a literary agent, she encouraged me to "finish it." (Of course I thought it was finished.) She said that she'd like to see it continued through the first three years of being a pastor. In other words, I'd written about the three years of change leading up to the pastorate, now write about the first three years into the pastorate.

While I hated that I had more work to do, I completely agreed with her. So, it was my intention to take note of my life as a pastor and eventually write those stories and insights down.

But shortly after becoming a pastor, Pete was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. When three years had gone by, I began to wonder about this second half of my memoir. Stories of illness and loss were braided with experiences of community and God. My personal insights could not be separated from my community insights.

Right there is the largest adjustment in my understanding of the Christian tradition this side of Pete's illness. I believe that Christianity is a community faith. I was raised that it was personal and we live in a culture that continually asserts that faith is not only personal but private. Yet, the more I live in the Christian tradition (with my particular community of faith), the more I think I could not celebrate Christianity alone.

There have been too many days where I came to God in prayer, seeking guidance and understanding, hope and healing and when I look up, there are others in my peripheral vision who were not only seekers themselves but they were offering guidance, understanding, hope and healing. Since I have been a pastor, I have been surrounded by a community of faith who lived the way of Jesus right before my eyes.

My faith amidst this illness was not strained because even when the answers to my prayers were elusive, there were others who had experience with elusive answers. When I was broken, I was not the only one broken in the room. Beyond my drishti, there was grace. Grace for this moment, for this prayer, for this hope, for this day. I was allowed to be flawed. (I'm still trying to accept that but those are my issues to deal with.)

When I look up with soft eyes, my exhale is filled with wonder at the people in my life who stand alongside me wondering where the end of one thing meets the beginning of another.