One of the great benefits of community - especially multigenerational community - is the realization that I am not the only one. My sorrow, my temptation, my wound, is not against me alone; rather I find it is common to man - a part of being a broken person living among broken people on a broken planet.
This revelation is both a comfort and a chastisement. I have comrades who have faced my temptation and overcome. Rather than my sorrow dragging me into self pity, it brings me into the tightly knit ranks of the wounded overcomers where I learn the deep truth that life is both bitterly painful and astoundingly, truly beautiful.
I not only learn how to stand against the enemy's lies but I learn that I must stand against them, just as my comrades have stood against them - just as they still stand today. I am welcomed into the battle, where my comrades will fight for me but will also expect me to fight beside them and we will joyfully and tearfully learn to wield our weapons, side by side.
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