Kayla has a great post over on this new site,inward /outward, and the following is but a clip…..do read the post. I am just on my way out for some errands, but wanted to call your attention to it. (Kayla is with Church of the Saviour, and co-author of Becoming the Authentic Church, which I posted from in this section of this blog). More on this post later.

Will we face the reality of . . .

* 30-some thousand children dying each day from preventable causes
* two-thirds of the world earning less than $3 a day
* my own nation using violence to install ‘democracy and freedom’ in other countries, all the while growing the largest deficit we have ever had
* the 45 poorest countries in the world having a combined GNP equal to the 3 wealthiest individuals in the world
* and so much more…

Will I dig down into the well of pain that these realities bring me? Will I face my own complicity in the mess that we’ve made of God’s garden? Will I begin to see the suffering as part of the divine Abyss where God dwells?

All I know is that I’ll never see it on my own. And neither will you. We need others who take seriously the dangerous adventure of following Jesus into the depths, who will encourage us to lay down the ways we’ve fooled ourselves, numbed ourselves, confused ourselves into thinking we have to mimic a “reasonably successful life” until we’re better prepared to start following Jesus seriously.

Maybe together we can begin to lighten our load enough so that we can take off together on hiking expeditions down, down, down as deep as we have the courage to go, toward our real life together. As Kelly calls it, “a life of amazing power and peace and serenity, of integration and confidence and simplified multiplicity”—all our many selves dwelling together in peace.

And maybe we’ll start living that life now.