Last week, we approached the idea of curiosity as an essential resource for growth and depth.
Curiosity can be a high challenge in times of anxiety, stress, division, and strife. It is understandable to see curiosity as a ‘nice option’ for normal times, dispensable in stormy times. Scripture, however, seems to give dynamic curiosity a prominent place in every season.
Jesus did not offer long lists of doctrinal musts. He was not intent on making sure there were checklists of beliefs or checklists of to-dos. Instead, the invitation was to “come and see” and to be in community with one another.
In the first chapter of John, as Jesus was calling disciples, he invited them to “come and see” what life with him was like. The woman at the well in John 4 was so captivated by her encounter with Jesus at high noon that her first response was to go to her neighbors and invite them to “come and see a man who told me everything….” Upon the death of Lazarus, Mary and Martha, surrounded by a grieving community, invited Jesus to “come and see” Lazarus’ tomb. Notably, as soon as they issued that invitation, Jesus began to weep.
An invitation to enter experience, through the door of ‘come and see,’ seems to be key to building community and the world that Jesus envisioned for all of us.
That curiosity should extend to the nature of community itself.
In a poem posted recently by the Poetry Foundation, American poet Harryette Mullen (b. 1953) expresses singular curiosity about what it means to be in community. Her curiosity takes the form of simple questions about the phrases we use to talk about togetherness – phrases like “draw together,” “stand together,” and more. Mullen’s questions might give your church board a way to start talking about what it means to come together, right now.
What Draws Us Together
by Harryette Mullen
When we come together, what shapes
the space around, defines the ground between us?
Which hand sketches the outline of a body?
If we are together, what gesture
completes the picture? Whose perception fills in
missing lines, suggesting a profile?
If we stand together, must unity resolve
the multiplicity of our infinite fracture?
What proportion is each figure?
When we go together, what is the simple form we make?
Who fits our edges snugly, composing a whole?
Whose eye searches the landscape for a focal point?
What does the invitation to “come and see” mean in your life of faith?
What do you hope might come from an invitation to your congregation to “come and see?”
Without giving this too much thought …. who is the “we” in Mullen’s poem? What is this “we” doing?
Which of Mullen’s questions feels most relevant for our life as a nation right now?
Which of Mullen’s questions feels most pressing for your life as a congregation?
How would you, as a church board, answer her questions?
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