Longing inside Community

The Risks of Dreaming the Impractical

We all have aspirations. We all have dreams and goals. But I am convinced that too much talk about life as though it were controllable if one only figured out all the steps, has inadvertently made dreams perfunctory excursions of the soul. I say perfunctory in that they now lack the enchantment and hopefulness that are really at the foundation of the soul. Who and what are we at our very depths but dreams? When these dreams are bantered about as though easily formed and easily accomplished, they lose their intrinsic glow. They lose their ability to offer hope. The loss of hope is a terrible thing. At this point the resignation allows for much of the fallenness of this world to berate and attack our soul and we are passive and quiet. We have no sense of childlike expectation.

The soul obeys out of expectation. This posture is not merely wishes and plans but is the very basis of trust in the world. When we lose our trust nothing has clarity. Nothing has substance for all is reflected in its fallen state. We only see the specter of what is not. To dream and anticipate is to trust beyond common sense.

We are taught from very early on that certain behaviors are sensible while others are not. I am convinced that if Jesus were to show up in Western advanced countries today he would appear like some wild eyed misfit and most of His teachings would be considered unrealistic, unusable if not downright useless.

So much of what animates our deepest parts is birthed and nurtured in hope. When that possibility is shot down through feasibility studies, cynicism birthed from our own unwillingness to admit we have lost our dreams, or a lack of conversation with the community, gatherings take on a selfish tone. Ironically, real dreams of hope always involve the whole. They involve the whole because individuals are willing to reveal their deepest most seemingly idealistic imaginings to others risking ridicule. When we have the courage to be children in front of one another we find that our authentic self begins to speak. We say what we believe the world should actually be like. Now the conversation begins. Now we must begin to trust for these heartfelt disclosures are the only thing really holding up our soul. This is the foundation below the foundation. This is the air our very being breathes.

Recently in our community the discussion reflected on how we are all learning how to love. The only way that action is poured out in our community is when we see two things – our lack and our hope. To allow our deepest needs to become apparent is to risk loosing our hope. What if our needs are unmet? What if no one cares? What if I am left alone? All these doubts and suspicions are equally real. They reflect the experience we have had to date when it comes to trusting other human beings. So why trust again? Why allow for our hopes to be rekindled? Because it is who we are.

When we choose to stop longing for the “really real” we become cynical, angry, busy, full of self, overly religious, and despairing. I have had to fight this last one for many months. When all hope seems to be lost where does one go? Where do I go? To those who I sense love me. This is dangerous for now I am really opening up my deepest desire. That deepest desire is to belong.

We live in times where belonging is often based around money earned, position in life, power, who one knows, and many other things that keep our selves set apart. For this community to go deeper into the longing we must go deeper into the impracticality of our dreams. We must go deeper into the sorrow of each person who is losing that power as we speak. We must have the courage to look at one another and carry that darkness for one another. We must say, “Let me long with you.” “Let me hallucinate the divine possibilities of obeying our Savior together and build a highly inept community and village. Let them say (about us) that they are crazy in love with one another and offer up all they have when they have so little. Is that not the miracle of the loaves and fishes? Let our longing cause us to share our loaves and fishes today and usher in the unworkable, unreasonable, impractical, beautiful Kingdom where everything belongs.