It is not good for man (or woman) to be alone. In fact, "the yearning to attach and connect, to love and be loved, is the fiercest longing of the soul." In a word, we all desire community. "To experience community is to know the joy of belonging, the delight at being known and loved, the opportunity for giving and growing, the safety of finding a true home." Community, the need for it, and how to build it is the subject of Everybody's Normal Till You Get to Know Them, by John Ortberg. All quotes presented here are from his book.
We all want and need community . . . but there's a problem: we're messed up. "We all want to look normal, to think of ourselves as normal, but the writers of Scripture insist that no one is "totally normal"- at least not as God defines normal . . . we are predisposed to do wrong when conditions are right. That predisposition is what theologians call 'depravity.'" "Because we know in our hearts that this is not the way we're supposed to be, we try to hide our weirdness. Every one of us pretends to be healthier and kinder than we really are; we all engage in what might be called 'depravity management.'" Our dark nature is something we yearn to hide; we don't want others to know how messed up we are. We therefore deny true community and "learn to survive through a combination of withdrawal and attack." We either hide our issues from the world entirely (withdrawal), or lash out at others (attack) through insults, judgments, and general cruelty. Since we were made for each other, both reactions are wrong: "they are the two expressions of the one great sin, which is a lack of love, the violation of the one great commandment."
The reality of our fallen nature, and our reaction to it, means that we're denying ourselves the community we require. "You cannot be fully loved if you are not fully known. You can only be loved to the extent that you are known." Therefore, to know and be known is at once the greatest joy and fear of the human race. We want it, we need it, but we're terrified that if people knew the truth- how we really were- we'd be rejected. Therefore, "some people pretend they're not broken. If you hide behind a mirage of strength and health, you may deceive people, but you will not be in true community." So how do we proceed?
Because "the desire for community is the deepest hunger a human being can have," "the work of building community is the noblest work a person can do." To do this, we need to "assign top priority to [our] relationships." In [American] society today, we tend to focus on achieving . . . but connecting is equally important, and often ignored. So how do we connect in light of our fallen natures and tendency to hide them? We need to be transparent, honest, gracious, and loving. We first need to realize our own state: "Jesus says the great lovers are those who have come face-to-face with their own great brokenness and have been undone by great grace." Then, from studying how Jesus interacted with people, we learn (and the author goes over) relational 'rules of the road,' how to handle conflict and confrontation, how to be inclusive and value all people. In short, we learn how to love: our lives depend on it.
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I liked this book- Ortberg brings up a lot of good points. He unpacks Gospel examples of community in helpful, insightful ways, and his tips for building community are spot-on. Community is so important . . . and we do it so poorly. We all need to reflect on our need and think on how to improve community in our lives. This book will help you do that.
Rating: A
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