Dear Fellow Christians,

This day is my birthday and, like usual, I've got some complaints. The ancient Ghost of Grouchiness, Solomon, has jabbed his knuckle into my thigh and found the pressure point. You should have an idea about the state of mind I'm in.

I'm not entirely sure the inner workings of a grumpy-post-op-just-got-my-wisdom-teeth-extracted-on-a-holiday-grad-student has much (if any) sense in it. Though, just like Dr. Womack a couple of days ago, I've got to get something out of me. As well, my shrink always encourages me to "hold on to myself" (whatever that means) and to be real. Well, you asked for it, here it goes.

For starters, why do we mostly only talk about community? Everywhere I look, our culture endorses a machine, or cash, or a far-away "expert" as the answer to our increasingly disjointed communities. This seems to have replaced the previously accepted essentials of a flesh-and-blood community. In other words, hard work (especially if it requires the use of our body), friends and neighbors, and the domestic arts are now terribly unfashionable and, perhaps, morally questionable in our "advanced" technocratic society.

Can we really say we live in community with each other if we are independent of our neighbors (including all of our brothers and sisters in creation)? So, let's get honest. The truth is this: I don't trust you! You're out to fill your needs and you don't much care about mine.

It should bother us that, if it were up to me (or maybe you), we might choose to undue (or, worse yet, ignore) the heavenly order God initiated, the mysterious and complete connection we have with everything created. We might choose to undue the beauty of Love's relationships with her creation as well as creation's right to direct and guide our decisions (I must say, I prefer happier topics). When our flesh has been removed to save time, money, and effort the community of God will suffer, perhaps losing much of what made it significant. Even still, the terms and limits of God's relationships with everything created will remain. Contrary to the notions of "rugged individualism," we need each other's cooperation and each other's consent. Essentially, we need Eternal Love (in the most concrete of terms!) expressed and, ultimately, defined by members of a Godly family; she is a bride that lives within her boundaries and fulfills her vows to Creation.

Some have told me that I am ignoring the good within our community. Yet, even our Bibles-displayed at church with cutting-edge computer technology-isn't enough to get us moving. We walk away from the building vaguely wondering if we were supposed to be doing something. It's really that simple, no grand diagnosis. We're barely interested! We're addicted to millions of forms of passionless conversation. We love, more than anything, to hear each other whine. I've had enough. (Ironic, isn't it, that most of this letter is one big "Whine Fest"?).

As a member of the Vineyard Christian Fellowship in Chico, California, I can say with some affection and brotherly concern that our service and "feel" is, overall, the same as many non-denominational warehouse-, supermarket-, or movie theater-converted churches. We're terribly insulated, in every sense of the word. We can't see what's going on outside of our church building (much like the Albertson's chain, for example, where there are no windows, the exits are few, and the aisles are many). We sit in our prescribed sections on Sunday morning, only to "visit" with the same "persons" that take up space in our row. Our lives resemble human-looking robots. I think I hear Isaiah's ghost at a distance shouting to us, trying to save us, "Listen to me. God doesn't give a damn about heart-less praise!" Stop for a second and think about this: when was the last time you spent the night, all by yourself, out-of-doors with only your thoughts of someone else and your fears as companions? That would be better time spent than the parade of droids that file in every Sunday morning.

Who really cares what we do anyway? We say we believe in miracles, but everyday the miraculous goes by unnoticed and the sacred is desecrated. This miraculous life that we need, that proves God's dreams true in our world, goes by with the speed of laser vision as we sit smiling, sedated, in the company of our motor vehicles. We watch the miraculous get crowded off a cliff, possibly never returning in our lifetime, maybe never again in history. What am I talking about? I mean our children that will never be raised by humans, but mostly by technology and institutions- think TV and public education. I mean the land, water, air, and creatures that we will never witness (in the fullest sense) or care about. I mean food and tools that are out of our reach because we can't remember how to plant, cultivate, harvest, hunt, or make. Even imperfectly, the chances of this rant succeeding to affect just one of my destructive ways are small, maybe like a mustard seed. The problem is, almost perfectly, us modern western consumers won't try to change anything that hasn't been directly translated into dollars or statistics. Just in case I'm wrong, let me tell you a few more things. My main concern is that we are living lives with no distinction. We have failed to put into practice the most basic instruction given by Jesus: to make disciples according to His Kingdom of the Heavens, teaching them to do all that he commanded. To do that, we would have to decide: "Disciples of what?" Are we students of corporations? The industrial economy? The American weapons of mass destruction? Popular American culture is in love with money and anti-depressants. How are we different?

It seems like we're content to live as slaves to Egypt, content as the oppressed and tolerated under Caesar, satiated to live as comfortable gadgets in the modern industrial machine. Our lives resemble sanitized and common versions of a truly good story: humans inspired to learn saving love for the whole world. This is the driving narrative that has captivated so many generations in the past; that has filled creation with groans of expectancy for her resurrection. For when eternity and time no longer have their expected boundaries-time swallowed up in the womb of eternity-our hearts finally see (I'm speaking quite literally) this Kingdom of the Heavens, this "continuous harmony".

Friends, our sameness with this age of ostentation and hubris puts at risk more than just the appearance of religion. We are dismantling God's creation and the community of lives that live in it! This work requires coming to terms with our mortality. We will not live forever and we cannot waste anymore time.

I know saying all this will never be enough and leaving my words here means a sort of death as they may fall flat. And yet, I trust them to the page and in the air between us, through our blood and in our bones. I can hope, for example, that by remembering our stories or silently walking in the darkness of trees, we will see, maybe for the first time; I can hope that by cooking what was not bought with money or by cleaning up our messes in the world, we will arrive unbound to a place, a "gathered community", a familiar home where everyone is finally welcome as a member of Love's Eternal Dwelling (see Wendell Berry's Jayber Crow, Counterpoint: 2000). I am aware, however, that some will find a way out of their membership. My song will turn into sad tones, one heavy syllable at a time- though this is not the end.

Relying upon death and resurrection, eternity will invade my day of knowledge with her special kind of darkening mystery. In my imagination, I see us laughing (or crying gently); we will sigh in relief, for we will have found our way back to a sacred place previously unrecognized. We will see (without seeing) the elegance and beauty of a home that the heavens have sung into being.

So.I'm tired now. I'm ready for bed. I think I've said enough. It won't happen again. Farewell.


Yours,
Jason Winton