Eirene is Jed Chun's personal blog, hosted by Joy Is Found. It's a reflective blog that he started with the intention of finding joy and renewing his awe of God in his everyday life as well as the places and things that are around him. He explores a variety of topics in relation to faith such as food, mental health, travel and relationships.
Western District Public Cargo Working Area, Hong Kong. Camera: Canon 6D Lens: Sigma 35mm f/1.4 ART
This blog post, or series rather, has been a long time in the making. I’ve been thinking about writing these next few posts for the last few years and I’ve finally decided to sit down and start (this is not at all related to the fact that I’m on a 12 hour plane ride and there is a serious lack of decent entertainment aboard this flight). Regardless, it’s as good a time as any to reflect on some of the people that I’ve met and the questions and thoughts they brought to mind regarding what it means to be walking this journey of sanctification through the lens of community.
I can’t remember exactly when this meeting occurred but, a few years ago, I had dinner with a college student from church on their campus. I do remember that I was there to check in for some reason or another and I wouldn’t have put it past myself to have just been trying to get a free meal swipe. The details of this encounter escape me (what I get for waiting so long to write this) but I do remember the context. As usual, I was again actively avoiding having to address the continued struggle that was my own faith, this time busying myself with making sure other people were doing alright. As far as meet ups like this one went, I generally just did what my usual counselor self does, actively listen to other’s concerns and provide some feedback, reflect questions back at them and help them process, hopefully coming to some kind of resolution. This time around, after some venting and processing, the question came to me, “So how are you doing?” I proceeded to provide some information about work and life in general, and they listened, briefly, before giving me a quizzical look and interjecting, “No, how are you doing spiritually?” at which point I was rather taken aback and unprepared to give an answer.
I think, in that moment, I vaguely remember making a remark about how I hadn’t been asked that question in a long time and probably responded with something along the lines of personally not being in the best place. I also realized that I hadn’t been asked that question in a very long time. While I don’t remember my exact response, I very clearly remember feeling encouraged as a result of that encounter, uncomfortable, but encouraged. I think it was because someone asked ME that specific question that brought about this encouragement. After some retrospective analysis that night, I also remembered feeling the nostalgia of wanting to once again belong in the same community I had in college, but there was probably a small part of me that knew that the new community I now found myself a part of, although different, was still an avenue through which God was moving and working in my life. Despite this nascent realization, it wouldn’t be until later that I finally accepted the truth that, as life progresses, our community and how it interacts with our lives progresses too. I’ve always been a proponent of community but now I, with some hindsight, have realized that my interpretation of “community” may have been small and incomplete.
The clarity hindsight helps and, with a fresh perspective, it’s easier to see now that community doesn’t have to be a gathering of people that are in the same age group or who are experiencing the same circumstances. Community doesn’t even have to be limited to the group of people that you meet with each week to talk about faith and share life with. Community can be something that we share, united by the grace of God, in just being a part of each other’s lives. Whether it’s the simple act of sharing of a meal or the outpouring of a heart, community in Christ is utterly recognizable in the continued moving of the Holy Spirit in being together. Sometimes people from a different life stage can reach into your life by simply asking a question that comes from their own normalcy. When was the last time you really asked someone, “How are you doing, spiritually?”
And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
Hebrews 10:24-25 (ESV)