So
what do I make of Parker Palmer’s message in The Company of Strangers? First,
he lays out in detail the isolation and other negative effects of individualism
and consumerism in modern culture, which has resulted in fewer and fewer public
spaces where people can meet each other and maintain the sense of relatedness
to “the stranger” and to find “comfort and at-homeness in the world”. He also discusses a Christian spirituality that
reflects this increased individualism, a piety and a notion of what it means to
be church that compounds the isolation and diminishes our willingness to seek and
build community.
Palmer
then makes a convincing case that now more than ever, as congregations and
people of faith grapple with the future of the church and it’s relevancy in our
time, Christians are in a unique position to be a bridge between the private
and public realms and to help people walk across that growing gap. The church could share its vision of
discipleship that lives as a gathered community who witnesses not just to
the world, but in the world.
But
Palmer is not naïve. It is especially fitting,
as we move through these last days of lent, to consider what he has to say
about the challenges of reclaiming our place as church in the world, where
conflict and risk are not only possible, but guaranteed. He suggests that a church that ministers in
the public realm is “a school of the Spirit” a place where God is continually
drawing us out of ourselves into a larger life.
That these places are where the Spirit offers us “holy teachings”
intended to show us where life really is.
Faith lived in community contains the paradox of suffering and joy, of death
and life.
The
book contains examples of how the church might create and support public
spaces. For instance, to work with local
leaders to increase green spaces, or start community gardens, areas that will bring
the public together. Or for a
congregation to help connect existing institutions, encouraging creative ways
to bring people together. Another is to engage
in a neighborhood survey, to begin the work of building stronger relationships
right where a church lives.
It
might not sound “like church” at first, or it may seem too difficult a task, especially
if you are a congregation with diminishing numbers and resources. But I wonder if Palmer is correct, that the “school
of the Spirit” is leading us into new “holy teachings”.
I
offer a personal story. Just this past
September, a few of us started a local non-profit, The Micah Project. It was to
be a one-stop ministry center where participating congregations could pool
their resources to help fill in the gaps by providing emergency financial
assistance and resource referral services.
However, before we even opened the doors of the center we discovered
that God had a much larger vision.
In
August, with the encouragement of an ELCA Community Developer, the Micah Project hosted a daylong
meeting to talk about the growing problem of poverty. Much to our surprise over 60 leaders
representing business, government, social service, and faith-based organizations
came together. The conversation was
quite frank and people shared openly. Two
months later we held a second meeting.
Again, they came together, this time to seek solutions to the problems
they had identified. Before the day was
over the walls of the meeting space were covered in the “Miracles” they hoped
to realize.
Then
in January we convened for a third time to develop an action plan based on the
“Miracles”. We knew that community organizing
like this was going to require a high level of trust, especially between organizations
that often found themselves in competition for scarce resources. It would also require a willingness to
relinquish some things that had been important to each of them. To our amazement the same community leaders
came out again; and with much enthusiasm, and in a very short amount of time,
found they had a common vision. Now,
under the banner of Together Siouxland
we have a written action plan with the following projects:
- Build more safe, decent, affordable housing
- Design a centralized community resource campus for all social services to reside
- Innovative entrepreneurial and vocational programs
- Development of a coordinated computerized intake / referral system
I
share this because over the weeks since
Together Siouxland began work on these projects I have thought a lot about
what took place. What was it that
brought these people together? What
created the passion and enthusiasm that got them to agreement so quickly? What did this process of Christian community
development have to offer?
It
couldn’t have been simply our goal of alleviating poverty. Most of us had spent our careers addressing
poverty. I believe that what I witnessed
was something like what Palmer describes in his book, that these people were
seeking a safe place, common ground, where they could express the spirit that
had always been present in their day-to-day work. The
Micah Project did nothing more complicated than provide this space and begin
a conversation. Yet, the results could not have been more powerful.
As
Palmer says, “Perhaps the greatest contribution the church can make to the
renewal of our public life is to help people feel the need to revive our sense
of commonality, and cultivate the openness of heart which will allow God to
raise up a new symbol of that reality in our midst.
Faithfully,
Deacon
Pat
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