I was thinking in the past few minutes about how my post yesterday quoting Hauerwas about how the first Christians believed that their belief required them to form a distinct community,  and how I commented that this must imply that one is a Christian only if one is a part of this body.  That leaves me out at present.  Yes, one can say that I am “a part of the body” in some symbolic sense.  But that seems an inadequate “consolation” (becuase that’s the weay it strikes me just now:  as a “consolation prize”).  And in thinking about this,  I realize that I , in my lack of a place to go today (I COULD have gone where we have been attending —but not since the first Sunday in May—but did not)….by not being anywhere today or in the past month,  I had forgotten that today was Pentecost Sunday.  Yesterday,  we were doing a few celebratory things for my wife Janet’s birthday (including some putt-putt and then watching a movie late when we got home—thus the lack of interest in getting up early enough to think about if we wanted to try to get to church—-a losing approach if there ever was one.)

It is of further dissonance that I realize that a year ago I was complaining about a lack of a church to call home on this same occasion of Pentecost Sunday.   The churches we have “tried” in that year since are not fraudulaent or bad; on the contrary,  they are “involved” in the community,  and many people work tirelessly advocating for and aiding the poor.  I just sense that I haven’t “gotten in”;  I don’t sense a sense of “Journey Inward/Journey OUtward,  or any distinctive commitment to a community life that takes seriously a discipline aimed at discerning call.  It seems much like the “issues” and “agreement” and alignment with “Liberal Issues” are more of a litmus for inclusion than the matter of being a body that worships and cultivating a kind of monastic lifestyle in its devotion to being formed as a community attuned to what God wants done by this particular people.

I can’t say exactly how things are “missing something” except that there is little different on the relational front between this church and a church that espouses right-wing politics and adores George Bush.  Just the “Progressive”, not-Religious-Right version,  with little difference in the nature of the solidity and  intimacy of the body of those so gathered.  I’m thinking again here about the Church of the Saviour “Mission Group” structure;  of their attentiveness and centrality of CALL and that “accountability” to one another is central to discovery of gifts which leads to call.  I still see no way “in” to this from where I sit.  I even sense a resistance to engaging with me when I do reach out.  It’s possible that I have some sort of “vibe” that misrepresent my efforts to “engage”?  The longer it goes on,  the more such suspicions (ie. paranoia?)  about myself gain a stronghold.

Am I looking too harshly at “the real world”?  Are my hopes (my “expectations”) making me too impatient? Am I exuding a judgmental “air” about me?  Should I accept a more “abstract” notion or try to work from an approach that I expect too much too soon?  Is what I want NOT out there?  (Well,  it is,  since this has been going on in DC with COS for 50+ years.

I’ve hacked away at this very post,  trying to figure out how best to explain this.  I guess I’ll have to just let it stand,  because I’m never going to be satisfied with even my account of this.