Last night in our group some of us discussed the heartbreak and pain of working alongside people whose very lives lead them to be people who betray, lie, and tell stories in order to gain, use, gather. As Christ-bearers I think that the element of suffering, of allowing yourself to be betrayed, used, scorned is one of the most difficult lessons of all. It is certainly one where my theology, reading of Scripture and inner-most self has the most tension (my coat being ‘borrowed’ is a good example of this: I’m supposed to give my shirt too, but meantime, my feelings of impotency, frustration, cynicism, and yes, betrayal gnaw away at me – until I finally manage to come to a point of ‘letting go’ – I can’t begin to tell you how long that takes me, or how difficult I find it, EVEN believing that The Other is more important than my material possessions, which are really only fiction anyway…). How do I love people who will habitually lie to me? That is normally considered a violation of something sacred ~ trust even. How do I KEEP loving people, and forgiving? That Jesus and his seventy-times seven! How do I… anyway, just some random thoughts that thinking about poverty all morning have led me into.
In some ways the overt lying of some ~ addicts, users, prostitutes, desperate women, men, even children is hard – wearing – frustrating – despair-inducing.
In other ways, I find that easier to ‘let go of’ or forgive than more ‘middle-class’ betrayal: the sense of power gamesmanship people engage in, the subtle lies, pretences, negotiations, the fear of popularity waning, or life being boring, so filling it with nothingness of activity, the banal-ness. Or, the kind of persuasive lies that surround us in advertising, music, media… And that we agree to when we ‘buy into’ it all. The sense that we whinge – a lot – about our lives, weight, health, work, money, and so on, and somehow have not learned what it means to be ‘at peace’ within our community, within our selves. And that somehow we short-change our world, each other, and God with our narcissism. [I feel like I should be writing disclaimers here - not all thinking about internal wellness, or questioning, or depression, or blues, or hurt is being narcissistic; not all complaints are ill-founded, and so on, it's just that sometimes I think that I (for one) forget that there's MORE to life that I allow there to be, and that meaning has to come from more than just coexistence...].
Anyway, I came across this ‘mantra’ and liked it (I think via Mark Scandrette’s blog, but I can’t remember right now)
To Creator, obedience
To creation, service
To each other, community
In all things, love
In all things, love
For life, prayer
With possessions, simplicity
In our world, creativity
In all things, love
In all things, love
The seven vows of the community: Creativity, Prayer, Community, Service, Obedience, Simplicity and Love.
Pretty interesting. Of course, I always have the who, what, why, how questions… but still, I like it.
PS. Robert, I totally get it about the dual-citizen thing, and although I'm further away from it now in real terms, I still have the whole take a person out of Canada... thing.
Check out my hair! Quite funny... Anyway, we celebrated at 'That Cafe' last night... delicious. 
