Life Together

The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer.

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 19.

Connectors

When [Lois] Weisberg looks out at the world or Roger Horchow sits next to you on an airplane, they don't see the same world that the rest of us see. They see possibility, and while most of us are busily choosing whom we would like to know, and rejecting the people who don't look right or who live out near the airport, or whom we haven't seen in sixty-five years, Lois and Roger like them all.

-Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point, 53.

The Truly Wide Taste...

The truly wide taste in reading is that which enables a man to find something for his needs on the sixpenny tray outside any secondhand bookshop. The truly wide taste in humanity will similarly find something to appreciate in the cross-section of humanity whom one has to meet every day. In my experience it is Affection that creates this taste, teaching us first to notice, then to endure, then to smile at, then to enjoy, and finally to appreciate, the people who "happen to be there". Made for us? Thank God, no. They are themselves, odder than you could have believed and worth far more than we guessed.

-C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves, 37.

Peace

Though we're strangers, still I love you
I love you more than your mask
And you know you have to trust this to be true
And I know that's much to ask
But lay down your fears
Come and join this feast
He has called us here
You and me

Chorus:
And may peace rain down from Heaven
Like little pieces of the sky
Little keepers of the promise
Falling on these souls this drought has dried
In His Blood and in His Body
In this Bread and in this Wine
Peace to you
Peace of Christ to you

And though I love you, still we're strangers
Prisoners in these lonely hearts
And though our blindness separates us
Still His light shines in the dark
And His outstretched arms
Are still strong enough to reach
Behind these prison bars
To set us free

-Rich Mullins

Knowing / Being Known

The path, too, to the "God-given reality" of my fellow-man or woman with whom I have to live leads through Christ, or it is a blind alley. We are separated from one another by an unbridgeable gulf of otherness and strangeness which resists all our attempts to overcome it by means of natural association or emotional or spiritual union. There is no way from one person to another. However loving and sympathetic we try to be, however sound our psychology, however frank and open our behaviour, we cannot penetrate the incognito of the other man, for there are no direct relationships, not even between soul and soul. Christ stands between us, and we can only get into touch with our neighbours through him. That is why intercession is the most promising way to reach our neighbours, and corporate prayer, offered in the name of Christ, the purest form of fellowship.

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, 98.

Other People

"My theory is—we don't really go that far into other people, even when we think we do. We hardly ever go in and bring them out. We just stand at the jaws of the cave, and strike a match, and quickly ask if anybody's there."

-Martin Amis, Money (hat tip Our Girl in Chicago)

Alone

He said, "Kelly I don't think
I've ever wanted as much
To be free as I've longed to be known.
And of the things that I hate
When I look at my life
The worst is my being alone."

-Don Chaffer, "The Worst is My Being Alone"

Not Some Stupid Ostentatious House

...And I realized that I was bugged for a metaphorical reason.

Cause I realized that I started to get bugged when I read that little plaque all about Vanderbilt and what he did in the house. He was alone a lot. Awww...I mean, you can just imagine him coming down to breakfast...in his bathrobe, he's got his cornflakes, he's reading his paper.

Now it's one thing to be alone, but sitting at a table that'll seat 350 people, now why rub it in? We get enough of that, right, cause hearts are made that way. We have hearts that are just huge, they'll hold a tremendous amount of fullness. Which is great if there's that much fullness to find, but man, it leaves us a lot of room for empty.

And then I realized, well, relax Dave, because the reason why you're bugged is cause you're worried that your heart is a bad design. It's not. It's not some stupid ostentatious house. It's the design of your heart, come on. There's a lot of fullness to find. Maybe it's only the empty that could keep us looking long enough to find it.

The depth of your dreams
The height of your wishes
The length of your vision to see
The hope of your heart
Is much bigger than this
For it's made out of what might be

So now picture your hope,
Your heart's desire
As a castle that you must keep
In all of its splendor
It's drafty with lonely
This heart is too hard to heat

When I get lonely
Now that's only my sign
That some room is empty in me
And that room is there by design
If I feel hollow
That's just my proof there's more
I need to follow
That's what the lonely is for

-Dave Wilcox, "Metaphorical Reasons" and "That's What the Lonely is For"

Making Friends

I already know an awful lot of people, and until one of them dies I couldn't possibly meet anyone else.

-Regina Lampert (played by Audrey Hepburn) in Charade

Paranoia

We who are
your closest friends
feel the time
has come to tell you
that every Thursday
we have been meeting,
as a group,
to devise ways
to keep you
in perpetual uncertainty
frustration
discontent and
torture
by neither loving you
as much as you want
nor cutting you adrift.
Your analyst is
in on it,
plus your boyfriend
and your ex-husband;
and we have pledged
to disappoint you
as long as you need us.
In announcing our
association
we realize we have
placed in your hands
a possible antidote
against uncertainty
indeed against ourselves.
But since our Thursday nights
have brought us
to a community of purpose
rare in itself
with you as
the natural center,
we feel hopeful you
will continue to make unreasonable
demands for affection
if not as a consequence
of your disastrous personality
then for the good of the collective.

-Philip Lopate, quoted by Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird