My last post, after a reflection on the “lack” of preoccupation with what goes on in our community of church, and what the church does to BE the church, I said “I continue reading”. But I read as an attempt to reflect, and to perhaps happen upon or be formed in some way that would lead me down some alternative path, or give me a distinct and specific calling to find that blessed communith for which I seek, and for which I depend upon for my discovery of call, and the continuing “impinging upon us” that these calls represent (the verb “impinging upon us” is via Clarence Jordan’s translation of Jesus’ announcement that “The Kingdom of God is upon you”….the word “upon” has this sense of “impinging”; “breaking in” and “requiring a response”.)

So, my reading is NOT intended to be, or some hidden unconscious desire to “avoid action”, but an earnest seeking of the truth as it is impinging upon me on this day. Reading Hauerwas and Yoder and such have been my “curricula” of “devotional”; a “habit” I am undertaking to fill my days as much as is possible with a listening to what The Kingdom of God is calling me to; and how the church has to be a polis in which this call to be the People of God forms us in the habits and the patterns and assumptions we need in order to live faithfully, and to have the kind of impactful truth as lived polis that God requires of his people.