What Are We Doing Together, Anyway?

 Signature Of Divine

Lyrics by Needtobreathe Lyrics

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Cathedrals have tried in vain

To show the image of your face

But we are, by your design

The signature of divine

We’ll always sing your name

The fortunes of kings and queens

Are wasted chasing what we’ve seen.

Cause we are, by your reprieve,

The beauty framed by your suffering

We’ll always sing your name

Forever and today

Yahweh, Yahweh

Great is your glory when you go before me

Oh, we sing  Holy, Holy

Your ways are lovely. So high above me

Yahweh...

We gather together to work, to learn, to grow; we gather into communities, towns, universities. People everywhere, they live in groups, they live in families; they cherish their friends and they spend time together, supporting and enjoying their ways and their company. We get sick, we go to hospitals to help us recover.
What all these things have in common, with each of us in our everyday lives, is that inescapable fact that humanity, as a species, seems hard wired for gathering.

 Into groups we collect and revel. Together. It all seems so natural. Why, by working together, supporting and accomplishing worthwhile tasks, what could be better?
The person who lives stalwartly alone, who is friendless, who has very little or no community to speak of, that is a person often pitied and eyed suspiciously. We exclaim, "are they ill? Why are they such loners?"
This all makes simple sense. It seems so natural to gather, to enjoy the company of our brothers and sisters, our loves and loved here on earth.
Yet when the matter turns to things such as the lyrics of the song above, many of us recoil. Why? Well, it seems we don't belong after all. We don't want to belong. For some, reinventing the 'spiritual' wheel is okay.

In fact, it's better than okay. It may be for these persons, the only way to demonstrate their will to 'pull themselves up by the bootstraps.' Many among us think, in spiritual terms, that there are aliens around us, to be avoided at all costs.
Infected with perhaps a strong sense of humanist enlightenment, a person with such notions eschews anything of community within the context of faith.

Yet if a faith community is true, existing for a higher purpose, for the common good, then it is, it must be and it will do something. Let me say this again: Churches, mosques, temples, ashrams and so forth exist because they do something for others.
If they do not, they they exist not for long. Communities survive and thrive because of the activities of each of its constituents. What each of us contributes to the good of all, is the community.

It is this fact that escapes many in the blog-sphere. Simply talking isn't sufficient, nor are kind thoughts or nice words and graphics. Communities must do something, and religious communities continue and persist for this very simple reason!
 Join the collective, engage in acts of social justice. Learn about yourself from another's eyes.
Help a friend. Be a community. "We are, by your design, the signature of divine, and we'll always sing your name."

The Rescue Operation

We Are One In the Spirit

Carolyn Arends

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We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord
We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord
And we pray that all unity may one day be restored
And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love
They will know we are Christians by our love

We will work with each other, we will work side by side
We will work with each other, we will work side by side
And we'll guard each one's dignity and save each one's pride
And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love
They will know we are Christians by our love...

Where there is division, there are things done wrong. It seems obvious when you read a statement like that. An observer from the outside looking in can many times easily discern what is right and what is not in a particular situation. The view from the inside, from the darkness isn't so easy, or so clear.

There was a long standing group who joined together for some common goals like camaraderie, shared interests and professionalism. On the outside, it had all the makings of a group of like-minded persons joined on friendly terms, destined to succeed--until they didn't.

In a vicious and passionate disbanding, this otherwise seemingly congenial group broke apart--permanently. They each, in the end, blamed the other. Perhaps they, in fact, each had a role in the thing done wrong. The rescue operation failed--it never even started. Estranged from one another, the divisions stand.

Those same persons lay low for some years, and then a new wind came to town. A group forms; some of those from the original group join the new group for the same or similar purposes. They joined without the division, as nothing had yet gone wrong.

However the possibility of something going wrong is always present for each one of us. Each one of us views events both from inside of our minds and from the outside of experience. If we are well, we see with a bright light; if not, dimness and fog clouds our eyes. We then may go wrong, with estrangement a possible result.

Many of us with some life experience have been witness to such a de-volution of persons. It may be our family, our church, our club, our workplace, or our community which goes wrong. What part do we play? What was the reason for others? Is there anyone to fault?
 Will fault even matter when things go wrong? Without a guide or some stabilizing compass, many will experience the pains of a community in disarray and the resulting enmity it produces.

There are guides available to the fallen, help for the ones in darkness. The thing about the lost is that they can become 'un-lost' or found if that is what they will themselves to.They may indeed build again to good success.
The Story of the Tenants speaks of this in Mark 12:1-12 and guidance follows in Mark 12:28-34: "the greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself."
 "It's such a soothing sound", isn't it?