The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and to keep it... Then the Lord God said, 'It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner...' So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,

'This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of man this one was taken.'

Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. (Excerpts from Genesis 2:15-24)

But it is you, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend, with whom I kept pleasant company; we walked in the house of God...

(Psalm 55:13,14)

How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity! (Psalms 133:1) This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. (John 15:12) I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:5)

.....

Our biggest problems arise from the fact that we have not only lost the way, but we have lost the address (Nicolai Berdyaev).

Before a 17-year-old Sydney girl committed suicide she wrote:

For months I sat alone Surrounded by bars, locks, keys. I longed for people, voices, someone to share things with. I longed to be free like the birds I could hear singing outside.

Now the bars are gone. But I am not free. The locks still keep my heart and soul imprisoned. I see people. I hear voices. But none of them reach me. I live alone in my world. They live in theirs.

She had gone to a 'good school', left and drifted to the city, where sheer loneliness drove her to suicide.

'I've built walls, a fortress deep and mighty, that none may penetrate. I have no need of friendship... I am a rock. I am an island.' Paul Simon, you know that's all wrong... Martin Buber said it well: 'The truth is not so much in human beings as between them.' No one is an island, wrote John Donne. We are fulfilled only through meaningful contact with others. Friendless people are never truly themselves. We need deep friendships with those who will love us anyway. Man Friday helps Robinson Crusoe find himself. The prisoner in solitary confinement seeks the friendship of a rat. (The agony of his punishment is isolation, being 'an island'.)

Did you know that geese flying in formation fly 70% faster than a single goose? They fly long distances because they have open-ended lungs and hollow bones. Thus they are upheld not only by the air around them but also within them. Each goose flapping its wings creates an upward lift for the one that follows. And as a goose begins to lag, the others 'honk' it into position.

We need one another. When spiders weave webs together, says an African proverb, they can tie up a lion. In the movie Crocodile Dundee, the Aussie bushman, during his first visit from the wilds of Australia to New York City is amazed by all the people who are seeing a psychiatrist. New York City, he had thought, would be a friendly place. When told that actually most New Yorkers are in therapy, he is unable to comprehend why anyone would need to pay someone to sit and listen. In shock, he exclaims, 'Don't they have any mates?'

Life, for most of us, is complicated, but it becomes intolerably so if we're chronically lonely. 'I watch others with loved ones laughing together - in public places or on TV - and I feel so painfully jealous and angry', said an unmarried 40-year-old woman to me. The ultimate question 'Who am I?' is only ever satisfactorily answered in honest community with loving, significant others. This idea will reverberate throughout this book: God is still in the business of incarnation - coming to us in the real flesh-and-blood love of another. We will only become whole people that way.

At weddings I give a little homily to the bride and groom (and everybody else, including myself!). Summarized, it may go like this: 'Jack, Jill your bride is a gorgeous creature, and you'd better not think you can change her. You'll want to, but don't. Just love her unconditionally... Jill, this handsome man will have habits and attitudes that will bug you. Love and accept him anyway. People change and grow when they're loved in spite of their weaknesses and faults. Every culture has a proverb which says something like "The sun does not command the bud to become a flower. It provides a climate of warmth, and a beautiful flower emerges." God's love for us is love-before- worth, not love-responding-to-worth. He loves us while we are yet sinners, not after we've stopped being sinners. He creates worth in us, so in the climate of that warm love we grow and change into the beautiful people he intends us to be. Go into your marriage and do likewise!'

Jean Vanier, from his experience in communities with handicapped people argues that 'to accept our weaknesses and those of others is the very opposite of sloppy complacency... It is essentially a concern for truth so that we do not live in illusion and can grow from where we are and not where we want to be, or where others want us to be.' [Jean Vanier, Community and Growth, Sydney: St. Paul, 1979, p.18]

The 'Genesis' of love-before-worth goes back to a God who creates man/woman, and takes delight in what he has made. These humans are formed 'in his image', like himself - but each is unique.

He walks, shares fellowship, with Adam, as good friends do. In this heart-to-heart dialogue both find great joy. God desires his friend to have a partner, and so creates Eve. But these humans break off dialogue with God and the result is disharmony, conflict, death. When we distance ourselves from God all other relationships are affected. We compete with others instead of empowering them. We are jealous instead of enjoying their success. We think and say and do violent things against others when they invade our space.

But God is actually still near to us: closer to us than we are to ourselves. He desires to be 'in relationship' with us. He is more than an artist or architect designing beautiful creatures in a beautiful world. He is also a loving parent, a devoted lover, longing for us to return from the far country. Although we are damaged by our fallenness, as Artist-redeemer he is touching us up all the time. Each of us becomes a 'cathedral' in which God dwells, a sanctuary for his peaceful presence. He is the divine physician who heals our self-despisings and our alienation. The images of his concern for us are legion.

But we are only re-created through dialogue - with God, and with others, and with oneself. Jesus is God's 'Word' to us, reminding us that we do not struggle alone. He is our friend, caring for us, and we are transformed by the grace involved in this encounter. But he is also our Lord, demanding our unconditional allegience (which is the only way to be 'in the kingdom', that is, to be whole). We say 'Yes, I will' to whatever God invites us to do. Then we begin to be transformed.

Paul's letter to the Ephesians (4:32) offers three simple rules for relating to others: be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another. Kindness, says my dictionary, is showing a generous, sympathetic, gracious and considerate attitude towards others. It is more than deeds, says Albert Schweitzer: 'As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.' (A pastor asked his congregation: 'If someone were to pay you $1 for every kind word you ever spoke and collect 50 cents for every unkind word, would you be richer or poorer?') To be tenderhearted is the opposite of being hardhearted. And forgiveness is something we do for others, not out of a sense of paternalistic pride (you've done wrong so I'm going to be big enough to forgive you) but as a fellow-sinner (I, too, need God's forgiveness always and your forgiveness sometimes).

A guard beat a Christian prisoner until he was half-conscious, and while kicking him demanded, 'What can your Christ do for you now?' The Christian quietly replied, 'He can give me strength to forgive you.'

.....

Everybody needs somebody. God has not only made us 'for himself' but also for one another. Jesus needed his friends: we too are not 'islands'. We are never whole unless we are in community: the Christian group is far more than the sum of so many individuals. As Goethe put it, 'All true life is in meeting.'

To be complete I need you and you need me. I need you to help me understand who I am. Unless I am a contortionist, I can't see more than 70% of my body without the aid of a mirror: so too I can't see my self without the aid of the mirror you hold up to me. I am incomplete psychologically or emotionally without your love. I have practical needs where you can help. If I am sick, pray for me. If I am lonely, be with me. If I am troubled, listen to me. If I am discouraged, give me fresh hope...

Chuck Colson, who became a Christian before being gaoled for his alleged involvement in the Watergate conspiracy offered some advice for new Christians: 'Surround yourself with people who care about you, who will help you, who will encourage you when you need it, and knock you down when you need that. The only way you can have spiritual power is through a fellowship of others who will really help you and guide you and be as one with you.'

Rowland Croucher, 'Community: Spiritual Gifts Meeting Human Needs', The Best of GRID, World Vision of Australia, 1993, p. 141. [239]

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature, which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.

C.S. Lewis, 'The Weight of Glory', Screwtape Proposes a Toast, Collins: London, 1965, p.109. [172]

I shall pass through this life but once. Any good, therefore, that I can do Or any kindness I can show to any fellow creature, Let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, For I shall not pass this way again.

Etienne de Grellet, French missionary, precise source unknown. [45]

Too many... are suffering from a lack of love which leaves them feeling isolated and lonely, uncared for and unencouraged. They can feel used instead of loved, criticized rather than affirmed... The triune God who lives eternally in relationship created us for relationships. We were made for fellowship with God and with each other. We really need each other to be fully human, fully Christian and fully effective. We need each other for comfort in times of suffering. We need each other to rejoice when we rejoice and weep when we weep. No matter how strong we are, we need to bear one another's burdens and receive help with our own burdens. We need each other's gifts. We need to hear the truth spoken in love. We need relationships which help us and nourish us as we seek to give ourselves to others. We need people to whom we can confess our sins, and with whom we can pray for healing and wholeness. We need conversations which build us up and affirm our gifts and abilities.

Roberta Hestenes, 'Christian Community and World Evangelization', paper given to the 'Lausanne in Manila' Congress on World Evangelization, July 11-20, 1989, p. 5.

Let [those] who cannot be alone beware of community. [They] will only do harm to [themselves] and to the community. Alone you stood before God when he called you; alone you had to answer that call; alone you had to struggle and pray; and alone you will die and give an account to God. You cannot escape from yourself; for God has singled you out. If you refuse to be alone you are rejecting Christ's call to you, and you can have no part in the community of those who are called...

But the reverse is also true: Let [those] who are not in community beware of being alone. Into the community you were called, the call was not meant for you alone; in the community of the called you bear your cross, you struggle, you pray. You are not alone, even in death, and on the Last Day you will be only one member of the great congregation of Jesus Christ, and thus your solitude can be only hurtful to you...

We recognize, then, that only as we are within the fellowship can we be alone, and only [those who are] alone can live in the fellowship.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, New York: Harper & Row, 1954, p. 77. [198]

Ignatius found God in all things. One of his great gifts was his awareness and noticing what was happening in his experience, reflecting 'Where is this leading me? Towards or away from God?' As a layman he wrote the 'Spiritual Exercises' and gathered his first companions to co-labour with him... These 'friends in the Lord' became the first Ignatian Apostolic Community...

[Today] 'Christian Life Communities' have three basic parts - (i) PRAYER, scripture, silence, sharing. (ii) SHARING on an aspect of life experience since the last meeting... exchange from deep listening, and response. (iii) EVALUATION when members reflect and share on the experience and inner movements of the meeting. This is a valuable means of growth in honesty and discerning love.

Mary Nolan, Christian Life Community, 'Communities Australia', 8 Locarno Ave, Kallista, Victoria, Australia 3791 (03 752 1136; Fax 03 752 10189), published in Communities Networking Newsletter, September 1993, p.2. [121]

Each person we meet leads us to a unique experience of our own persona in a way no other person can. When you open yourself to another person, it is not a situation of one plus one equals two, but one plus one equals a new universe.

Richard Currier and Frances Gram, Forming a Small Christian Community: A Personal Journey, Twenty-third Publications, (183 Willow St, PO Box 180, Mystic, CT USA 06355) 1992, p.12. [47]

Sociologists talk about 'social networks'. Your social network consists of everyone you know. Imagine a set of points some of which are joined by lines. The points are people, or sometimes groups, and the lines tell you who interacts with whom. Each person is in touch with a number of others, some of whom may know each other. There is no common boundary to the network (unless a tribe in Papua New Guinea hasn't been discovered yet!).

In modern industrial societies people move further away from their 'home town' or childhood village, and they move more often. Social networks therefore replace 'communities'. We know more people more superficially. As we move house (on the average every 3-5 years in some middle class suburbs) we leave friends behind and are sometimes hesitant to make close friends in the new location, knowing we'll have to leave them soon too. So marriage is becoming more important to satisfy needs some of which would be met by the wider community in traditional cultures. But the 'catch 22' here is that marriage is becoming more fragile, due to the disintegration of societal values. This is the terrible price we pay for a flexible economic system.

Rowland Croucher, 'The Importance of Christian Community', LIVE! More Meditations and Prayers for Christians, Melbourne: JBCE, 1993, pp. 165-6. [198]

When a community welcomes people who have been on the margins of society, things usually go quite well to begin with. Then, for many reasons, these people start to become marginal to the society of the community as well. They throw crises which can be very painful for the community and cause considerable confusion, because it feels so powerless. The community is then caught in a trap from which it is hard to escape. But if the crises bring it to a sense of its own poverty, they can also be a grace.

There is something prophetic in people who seem marginal and difficult; they force the community to become alert, because what they are demanding is authenticity. Too many communities are founded on dreams and fine words: there is so much talk about love, truth and peace. Marginal people are demanding. Their cries are cries of truth because they sense the emptiness of many of our words... but sometimes marginal people can become a focus for unity, because they... can force the community to pull itself together.

Jean Vanier, Community and Growth, Sydney: St, Paul, 1979, pp. 204-205. [178]

When the judgement comes what will King Jesus say to each of us? Will he ask if we have been 'born again'? Will he ask what awards we have received or what influential people we have known? It seems not. He will ask, 'Did you feed the hungry? Did you clothe the naked? Did you visit me in prison?' What is striking about this parable is that the blessed of the Lord seem unaware of what they have done. They seem surprised to hear Jesus say, 'As you cared for the least of my sisters and brothers you cared for me.' When Jesus says, 'Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you,' they ask, 'Are you talking to us?'... The dying words of the German poet Goethe were 'Light, light, let there be more light.' When the 20th century Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno reflected on these words, he said, 'It is not more light we need, but more warmth. Warmth, warmth, more warmth! We die of cold, not of darkness. It is not the night that kills, but the frost.'

Anthony B. Robinson, 'At the Clothing Bank', The Christian Century, November 3, 1993, p.1085. [185]

.....

Lord,

All the lonely people, where do they all come from?

Occasionally / sometimes / often I'm one of them. I was made for relationships, community; What others have done to me affects me; What I have done to others has changed them; I am a part of all whom I have met; I cannot disentangle myself from others Or from God.

So, Lord, Help me to enhance the lives of those I meet by

* treating others as I would like them to treat me; * seeking for others the happiness I seek for myself; * doing something helpful for others most days; * being friendly even if my friendship is not reciprocated; * contacting someone to cheer them up; * developing the art of listening; * praying for others; * learning to worship so that I may gradually be disinfected from egoism; * and remembering that I will meet you today, Lord, in the person who needs an encouraging word or a helping hand.

Amen.

A Benediction

May you know you are loved, and in the power of that love may you become what you were destined to be. May you find some others who can enhance your personhood, and may you do the same for them. Amen.

CAPSULE 1: ETHOLOGY AND BOUNDARIES

Just yesterday our family had to ask a homeless, dollar-less person to leave, after being with us on-and-off for a month. She's been a friend for twenty-five years, and has regularly stayed in our home, but it was time for her to make it on her own. She did not like it, but we had to be firm. We have had various people stay with us for thirty years. Why would we 'toss someone out' like this? Because we love her, that's why. (By the way, we found an alternative place for her, a church to underwrite the first two weeks' rent and meals and a pastoral chaplain to help sort out her affairs).

Let me explain...

Ethology is the study of the comparison between human and animal behaviour. An important concept in ethology is the notion of territoriality: the practice of marking a piece of ground and defending it against intruders. Animals as diverse as fish, worms, gazelles, and lizards stake out particular areas and put up fierce resistance when intruders encroach on their area. Many species use odorous secretions to mark the boundaries of their territory. For example the wolf marks its domain by urinating around the perimeter.

Humans are also territorial animals: our genetic endowment drives us to gain and defend territory, much as the animals do. As one ethologist put it, 'The dog barking at you from behind his master's fence acts for a motive indistinguishable from that of his master when the fence was built'. The list of territorial behaviours is endless: in a library you protect your space with a book, coat, or note-book; you 'save a place' in the theatre or at the beach - reserving a spot that is 'mine' or 'ours'; juvenile gangs fight to protect their turf; neighbours of similar ethnic backgrounds join forces to keep other groups out; nations war over contested territory; pastors accuse others of 'sheep-stealing'.

Now there's good news and bad news here. Individuals and families ought to have boundaries - physical, material, emotional - and others ought to respect those boundaries. Indeed, boundaries define us, in many ways. They tell us and others 'what is me and what is not me'. My fence tells me where my property begins and ends. My skin does the same thing for my body. Words do it in communication - particularly the word 'No!' which helps others understand that you exist apart from them, and that 'I am in control of me'. Taking time off from involvement with people or projects helps you gain control of your own time-program. Emotionally, we need some privacy, particularly when someone else wants to abuse us: because we fear being alone we permit another to invade our personal space. We may have to separate ourselves from that person for a time to regain our emotional strength. And we must learn that the abusive 'invader' is not the only source of love and intimacy in the world: we need to selectively 'expose' ourselves to others as well.

For many humans, the desire to help others is a subtle (perhaps unconscious) ploy to invade their space to satisfy some of our own needs. We 'need to be needed'. The love we give is 'need love' not 'gift love'. Was it Thoreau who said 'When you see someone coming towards you with the obvious intent of doing you good run for your life'? And C S Lewis wrote about a lady who 'went around doing good: you could tell those she did good to by their hunted look.' Many people-helpers want to be 'little messiahs', saving everyone from themselves.

But on the other hand, people need people. We are in this world only once, and we ought to be helpful here, as well as being decorative! 'Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ' (Galatians 6:2). We must try to develop the skill of knowing when it is appropriate to be helpful, and when we can best help by leaving a person (or a crowd) alone. I love the statement in Luke 5:15,16, which describes the crowds which followed Jesus to be taught and healed, 'but he would withdraw to deserted places and pray.' He knew when it was best for others to leave them alone; and when it was best for his own emotional and spiritual nurturing to enjoy solitude with his Father-God.

So I have responsibility for my yard, but not for others'; I nurture what is mine, and I don't have to take responsility when others' lives are messed up. We must not trespass into territory where we don't properly belong. And we have a right to exclude others from our private space or our family's territory if they would not be helpful there.

But this can be selfish if taken too far. As a result of our fallenness, this planet and its inhabitants have substituted 'territoriality' ('my space - keep out') for 'hospitality' ('my space - you're welcome!'). The Bible has many stories and injunctions about reversing this effect of the Fall. We are to house the homeless, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger. We'll be asked questions about all this at the 'Great Judgment', Jesus warned (Matthew 25). Knowing the fine balance between being helpful, and being 'spattered all over the wall of needfulness' is something to be learned through hard experience.