Life is really complicated. There are a lot of other adjectives that would have worked there, but few that capture the gravity of it all like ‘complicated.’ Right now, all around us, really amazing and utterly heartbreaking things are taking place. Babies are being born, grandparents are dying, products are being sold, cars are breaking down, single moms are graduating, alcoholics are going to rehab, kids are watching t.v., judges are making decisions, dream homes are being built, fathers are being laid off – the tides of hope and despair roll in and out, seemingly beyond anyones control, held firmly within the grip of a distant moon.
Woven in the middle of this wild tapestry is a delicate thread, that by appearance, looks too weak to be of consequence, but in reality holds it all together, keeps life from dissolving like disappearing fog in the rising sun. It is the golden filament of friendship and family, common as a penny, yet rare as gold coins from a sunken, Spanish sailing ship.
We need each other. The good kind of life is the shared kind of life. God himself models this kind of living by being a sweet community within himself – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This isn’t just high-minded theology, or saccharine sweet sentimentalism, its the way real life works. Family is born out of naked friendship where nothing is hidden and everything is shared.
Yet more and more of us live isolated, lonely lives – a sort of modern leprosy that drives us further and further apart, until we live are, finally, all alone. Even when people are around, even when our iPhones are blowing up with text messages, even when the calendar is full – alone.
Sweet community, while most definitely heavenly, is not always easy because this sort of friendship, this kind of family, the kind that loves at all times and is born for adversity requires a vulnerability, a transparency that can be downright unnerving. But for those who risk, there is reward.
