You know, lots of people talk about healing in community and relationships. How we heal each other - but there is a lack of true community. a lack of people willing to really do the work... what we are pursuing - healing, connectedness, reconciliation, knowing, etc... takes work. it hurts. it's hard and costly. there is a reason that we are called to a self-sacrificial love - because that is precisely the type of love it takes to bring true healing, connectedness, reconciliation, knowing, etc. in thinking about healing and reconciliation, it's even harder...
relationships with broken people take work - and it might be a very long time or never that something is given in return when you are giving to someone who is intensely broken. how selfish have we become? how rotten are our cores? how broken are we? how self-righteous are our dirty despicable minds?
i no longer naively believe in goodness. i am doubting beauty. i doubt gentleness and faithfulness can be lived out. i doubt that anyone knows Jesus and lives like him, loves like him. i doubt anyone really tries. i doubt anyone wants to. i'm not sure i want to call myself a christian or a christ follower anymore. i don't know what to think. all i feel is pain and loneliness. i see comfort through words and rejection through actions. white washed tombs. some of it is a darkened perception. some of it is a reality that is dark - the shadow side of people who claim to live deliberately. the shadow side of people who claim to know Christ. the shadow side of people like me.
if the broken are banished and stigmatized from the church and sent to therapy, then what good is it? if therapists stigmatize and refuse to see or treat and categorize and demonize, what good is it? if therapy is done well and what happens in the room is good, but there is no supportive community in which to live out and test out the corrective relating - then what good is it? what is the point of doing the work to heal, if no one will help bring healing through process? what is the point of therapy if the effects don't go outside of the sessions and the inner life and spill over into relationships (both with God and with others)?
since when is it ok to just have relationships that are easy? since when is it ok for the church to outcast people who are hurting? since when is it ok for helping professionals to hate and/or reject people who exhibit certain symptoms or people who are different? esp when those people are the people who are hurting and need help the most - and i don't care if they reject it - that doesn't change our side of the bargain...
talking with one friend, she brought up the point that we don't blame children who are abused and are acting out as a result of it. however, when that child grows up and continues to act out as an adult - we blame them and say they need to straighten up. she's right. how many broken people do we banish from our presence when what's really going on is that they have never healed from abuse or trauma in their pasts? i would hate to know the real numbers, because even one sickens me.
i believe in healing through relationships - otherwise i wouldn't be studying counseling - and i wouldn't believe in christ either. afterall, it is relationship with christ that brings healing - through himself and his body, the church... at least, that's the way it's supposed to happen...
i think that many people could be radically transformed through true friendship, real listening, and unwavering commitment and unconditional love (even when the acting out gets ugly or even mean); if we really listen and do life together - we can soon begin to distinguish those who want to do us harm from those who have endured much harm and are relationally broken. sometimes, we may get lashed out at, but we need to learn to listen better to know if that lashing out is a reaction to pain or a truly malicious gesture. yes, we have to have some sort of protection, but that doesn't mean taking the easy road of no conflict or no grey areas...
i'm truly not sure what to think - is community even possible? is love real or imagined? are we, as existential theorists posit, ultimately alone? i'm not sure... but i do know that the more i see the shadow side of people, the less i believe in the light, and the more i feel pulled toward the shadows...
will somebody please prove me wrong? will somebody please change? will somebody please show me that Christ does exist and that the love of God can change the way we live? will somebody please demonstrate real connection?
will somebody, please, for the love of God, show me that love is real?
