The Vision That Sustains Us

The chapel was quiet, its lights dim. A small wooden altar held a flickering candle and a vial of rose oil. We sat on the floor in a circle, close to one another.

The pain poured forth -- wells of pain such as this community had never before touched together. Each of us shared whatever feelings of grief or hurt still disturbed our souls. As we went around the circle and the pain welled forth, we received and held it gently for one another.

After each sharing, we moved even closer, placing hands on the one who had just spoken, voicing prayers for mercy and comfort, embracing the tears. Rose Berger moved forward after each offering of intercessions, to each of us by turn. Taking our hands into her own, she anointed our palms with oil in the sign of the cross. Voicing our name, she tenderly proclaimed, "We anoint you healer, and healed; one with Christ; together in this community, the body of Christ."

The sharing went on past midnight, with no signs of fatigue among us. We touched the presence of Christ in that room. And the embrace of the Holy Spirit, the one named Comforter, was palpable.

What had brought Sojourners Community finally to this moment of healing in a retreat center in rural Maryland began months -- perhaps even years -- ago. No one can pinpoint exactly when it began to happen; but at various times in the recent past -- and with furious frequency in the months preceding Easter -- we acknowledged to one another that our community life had ceased to be life-giving.

Most of us found ourselves feeling more insecure and unsupported than nurtured in our life together. Every issue among us -- our worship life, leadership, our rootedness in a poor black neighborhood, the role of our ministries, and even the basic tenets of our faith -- seemed to be cause for division and dissension.

We devoted last year's Thanksgiving retreat -- and meeting after meeting that followed -- to discerning our vision and identity. For months we tried to sort through the confusion, the bonds of love and history sustaining us through countless rounds of tense and difficult discussion. In the midst of the anguish, we tried to rely on the feeling that we had more in common to hold us together than reason to separate.

But what emerged around Easter was the clarity that we could not all go on together. Our community was gripped by the paralysis of competing agendas and desires, with life feeling to more and more of us like a negotiated settlement based on a series of compromises. At the heart of the matter, we no longer shared the same call.

A substantial number of community members left. And, as seems always to be the case in such circumstances, everyone came out of the fray with deep wounds. Despite our best efforts to respond to one another with sensitivity and integrity, none of us was without sin, and none of us escaped unscathed.

Our retreat in mid-September was the beginning of rebuilding among those of us who still know Sojourners Community to be our home. We began that Friday evening at the only place that was possible -- the healing that comes from voicing and sharing pain.

We had arrived with our assorted wounds, including shaken trust in the possibility of community. Each of us had faced a moment in the past months when we had asked ourselves if the pursuit of shared life was worth the energy and risk.

We knew only too well that this same struggle had gripped all the communities with which we had shared friendship over the years -- and most hadn't survived it.

But in that dark chapel we were anointed and healed. We were set free.

ON SATURDAY MORNING WE BEGAN to talk about the foundations of our faith. Fear was expressed at the outset -- a fear that as we talked together, the precious unity we had experienced the night before might evaporate. The sentiment resonated with many of us, still shell-shocked from these discussions in the past.

Jim Wallis shared an experience of the night before. He had lingered in the chapel, eventually drawn to the large, wooden crucifix hanging behind the altar. And as he knelt beneath it, he envisioned all of us gathered there together. He turned in his Bible to the Sermon on the Mount and read and reread it through much of the night.

In our midst he offered the observation, "We are not here to get a theological consensus on the importance of the crucified Christ -- but just to sit together at the foot of the cross." And in that Spirit we were able to talk about our faith, and to experience a profound unity. The joy was palpable.

Our task for the days ahead was articulated by Rose: "to root ourselves in following Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, in scripture, and among the poor." She observed that the choice of most people in the world is limited to pain; but, given the realities of our culture, "we have to choose to be in places of pain; that's how the gospel becomes real, becomes good news for us."

Karen Lattea had also found herself drawn to the Sermon on the Mount. "You read it and are compelled by it to change your life, without an agenda for the results," she shared. "Being a disciple, living convicted by the Sermon on the Mount -- that's enough."

Gordon Cosby, pastor of the Church of the Saviour, joined us Saturday afternoon. He offered us his gifts of wisdom and experience, and most of all, the gift of encouragement.

We were all still a bit tentative about the hope that our unity would hold past the high emotions of the weekend. He said simply, "You have to trust that the same power that produced it will be there for the next moment, and the next moment, and the next." And he added, "The indwelling of the Spirit is not fragile; human beings are fragile."

He reminded us of the biblical account of Peter going up to the mountain top with Jesus, where Moses and Elijah appeared. Peter wanted to build three tabernacles, "to hang around for a long time and capture the moment,"according to Gordon. Then he added, "You all have lots to do in the valley when you go home. Believing in the moment is a little different than hanging on to it."

Gordon stated that the trauma we had been through as a community was "the inevitable consequence of people being faithful to their own calls." And he affirmed that a call should never be abandoned or compromised for the sake of preserving relationships. Our efforts to "reconcile the irreconcilable," he said, only created a situation in the community in which, "as people began to touch it, they didn't know where its heart was." And then he reminded us of our heart.

"You may do a little neighborhood center, and a little magazine," he said, smiling affectionately, "but that's not the main thing you're doing. The main thing is being the body of Christ." He recalled Jesus' prayer to God just before his death for his disciples' unity: "... that they may be one in order that the world may believe that you have sent me." That unity, Gordon encouraged us, must be the heart of our witness.

He told us that to continue to experience it, we must live "with a sense of being for each other -- even if we disagree." And he spoke the truth that part of our power and unity, indeed part of being faithful to our call, is to be for the people who left the community. It is a challenge that some of us have been able to embrace; others of us still struggle to find the grace.

ON SATURDAY EVENING WE GATHERED again in a circle on the floor, with a bare altar between us, this time at the foot of the cross. We sang "We've Come This Far By Faith" and listened to a reading from 1 Corinthians 12:

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same God ... To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good ... For just as all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body ... and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

We shared together a ritual of affirmation and gratitude. Each member of the community had been handed an object as they had entered the chapel, a symbol of the gift that they bring to our body.

George Gentsch held a dove from Peru, woven in bold shades of blue. We acknowledged it as a symbol of his gift of prayer, of the gentleness of the Spirit that dwells in him. As he placed the dove on the empty altar, I proclaimed, "For the gift of George ..." and the community responded, "We thank you, God."

Barbara Ryan's gift was a pottery bowl etched with the word "kindness." Others speak of a "cup of kindness," but Barbara always offers a bowl. She reminds us that as we empty ourselves and give to others, God always fills us again. She placed her gift on the altar, and again we offered the litany of thanksgiving.

Dolly Arroyo held a bright red heart, embroidered in Hungary. We affirmed her compassion and thanked God for giving our community such a heart. Barb Tamialis' gift was a cross made of cedar from the Middle East -- a towering tree that is a sign of strength in the Bible, a tree with deep roots to withstand storms. For Barb's strength tempered with faith, we gave thanks.

Dan Goering had a carving from Angola of a face, made of ebony. Its creator had explained to me that the carving was ebony through and through -- not a cheap wood covered with shoe polish, as some others are -- and then offered an Angolan version of "What you see is what you get." We thanked Dan for his honesty, for always telling us how he's really doing when we ask, and for always caring in return.

Karen Lattea's gift was a doll made by Mothers of the Disappeared in Chile. When the tradition of the dolls began, the mothers cut pieces of cloth from the clothing of their dead children and made "birthing dolls" -- dolls of women giving birth, signifying new life from death. For Karen's courage, we gave thanks to God.

Joe Roos held up a rough piece of wood, with a spike through it to form a cross, on a chain. The community was invited to identify it -- a cross made 19 years ago by the seminary students who founded Sojourners. One had been given to each member of the new community for wearing around their neck. We thanked God for Joe, who was part of that group, and for his gifts of longevity, commitment, and loyalty.

Rose Berger added a tapestry from Guatemala to our altar -- bright red, with other bold colors woven throughout it. We offered thanks for her creativity, for the ways she adds color and poetry and beauty to our life. Jim Tamialis followed with a large quartz rock. Its square corners reminded us that Jim is a cornerstone in our community, a foundation that can be trusted, a sign to us all of steadfastness.

Jim Wallis held a large red candle, given to us on the 10th anniversary of the Nicaraguan revolution. Its flame reminded us of his passion to change the world, the light he offers to show others the way, and the fire that purifies and signifies integrity.

I opened up a wooden toy from the Soviet Union, a doll whose halves come apart to reveal a smaller doll, which comes apart to reveal yet another -- seven in all contained within one another. We acknowledged the power of human connectedness, and the community gave thanks for my gifts of empathy and humor.

The toy prompted us to give thanks for absent members as well -- for our community children, who love to take the doll apart, and who teach us about wonder and delight. And finally we gave thanks for David Fitch, who has been in Guatemala for a year. A small model bicycle made in Soweto out of wire reminded us of his commitment to simplicity and to serving those who suffer.

From our individual gifts we had built a colorful altar for our community. We acknowledged that none of us has an exclusive claim on courage, or compassion, or strength; we have all been given in great measure. And as we looked at the wide array of gifts, we recognized with deep gratitude that what God has given is sufficient.

The gifts connected us to people in all corners of the world. We saw our attempt to live as the body of Christ as just one expression that ties us to the body of Christ everywhere. And then we recognized that two gifts were missing.

The bread and the cup were placed among all the others, blessed, and then shared. As we passed them among ourselves, we sang "We Are One In the Spirit." And for the first time in a very long time, we knew how deeply we knew that to be true.

WE WOULD LIKE TO LIVE as salt and light, as a community of faith that holds forth an alternative to the world's values, as sisters and brothers with the poor -- rooted in scripture, bound by love and the Spirit. It is the vision that gave Sojourners birth; and it still sustains us.

There will be plenty of time for discerning all that that means for us in the days ahead. For now, we have embraced a very basic credo. We read it as our benediction that Saturday night, just before a jubilant rendering of "We Have Decided to Follow Jesus." It is a vision found in the 12th chapter of Romans:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect ...

As in one body we have many members, and all the members do not have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; he who teaches, in his teaching; she who exhorts, in her exhortation; he who contributes, in liberality; she who gives aid, with zeal; he who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.

Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with sisterly and brotherly affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Never flag in zeal, be aglow with the Spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints, practice hospitality.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; never be conceited. Repay no one evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

It is too late for us to be naive, too early for us to be wise. We will surely disappoint one another again. But, as people who came close to tossing it all away, we now dwell in a place called gratitude. We share a feeling that can only be called fullness of life. And it is not possible, at this moment, to think of anything the world can offer that would be worth trading in these moments of joy and grace.

We have surely touched crucifixion in our life these past many months. But today we can say, with confidence and joy, we have tasted -- and drunk deeply of -- resurrection.

We commit ourselves to placing that resurrection hope at the heart of our life as a community. And we trust that it will pour into every part of our lives -- onto the pages of this magazine; into the hearts of the children who learn at our neighborhood center and the adults who come for Bible study or food; into the lives of those who have faithfully shared in our worshiping congregation; and to those who may yet be drawn to our life.

We offer our thanks. And we ask for your prayers.

Joyce Hollyday was associate editor of Sojourners when this article appeared.