The Holy Longing

I've been reading the book The Holy Longing: The Search for A Christian Spirituality by Ronald Rolheiser for the past week. I'd had it sitting on my shelf for a few years, but picked it up after listening to a message by Rob Bell from Mars Hill Church. I'm glad I didn't read this book back then because of how it's been impacting me now, right where I'm at, right when I needed it, in the exact way I need it to.

The book has a number of deep thoughts about spirituality, most of which are just starting to sink in, so I won't try and summarize. The big theme that has stood out and stuck to me throughout this whole book is this: Community is essential to Christian Spirituality. Pretty obvious, right? Sure. Most people can agree with this:

What church community takes away from us is our false freedom to soar unencumbered, like the birds, believing that we are mature, loving, committed, and not blocking out things that we should be seeing. Real churchgoing soon enough shatters this illusion, and gives us no escape, as we find ourselves constantly humbled as our immaturities and lack of sensivitivy to the pain of others are reflected off eyes that are honest and unblinking.

..the individual in quest of God, however sincere that search, lives the unconfronted life. Without church, we have more private fantasy than real faith....real convesrion demands that eventually its recipients be involved in both the muck and the grace of actual church life.

I've seen this first hand. By going to a church of people that are very different than me, and sticking with those people even when I disagree and dislike some of them has shown me more about myself by what's been exposed. Going to church, in perfect harmony, with a bunch of people who are just like me and never rub up against me is probably the last thing I need. He takes it way beyond just going to a church, and takes it into what it means to be a long-term part of a community, no matter how tough and ugly it gets.

He uses this example:

Imagine you join a new parish community. Initially, meeting all these people for the first time, you fin dthe community good and to your liking. You are so impressed in fact that you get involved both in the parish council and the choir. Eventually, however, as you get to know everyone more deeply, a certain disillusionment sets in. You learn that your pastor has some rael faults, that your parish council can be petty and narrow, and the community itself can be quite self-absorbed and callous to the needs of those outside itself. It all comes to a head one evening at a board meeting when someone accuses you of being pushy and arrogant. The penny drops inside you, and as you walk out of that meeting, you say to yourself: "This is intolerable! I don't need to put up with this! I'm outta here."

To say, "I don't have to deal with this!" goes against the teaching of Christ because this is precisely what he was referring to when he said: "Unless you eat my flesh you cannot have lifewithin you."

...In essence, what Jesus is saying: You cannot deal with a perfect, all-loving, all-forgiving, all-understanding God in heaven, if you cannot deal with a less-than-perfect, less-than-forgiving and less-than-understanding community here on earth. You cannot pretend to be dealing with an invisible God if you refuse to deal with a visible family.

We cannot bypass a flawed family on earth to try to relate to a nonflawed God in heaven.... Part of the very essence of Christianity is to be together in a concrete community, with all the real human faults that are there and the tensions that this will bring us. Spirituality, for a Christian, can never be an individualistic quest, the pursuit of God outside of community, family and church.

This book is reshaping the way I look at a couple big things in my life.