So lately I’ve been reading Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove’s The New Monasticism: What it has to say to Today’s Church during work breaks and in my time around the apartment. Wilson-Hartgrove is the co-founder of a neomonastic inner-city community known as Rutba House in North Carolina. The book was definitely on my reading list for awhile but I didn’t get a copy of it til I found it at the LAPL central branch, which happens to be a stone’s throw from my Starbucks. To make a long story short, the book is great and has a lot of very wise and challenging things to say. Jonathan is a lot like Shane except I think he focuses more on the community aspect of neomonastic practices. But it was really refreshing to hear about some of the ways the Kingdom is being manifested in different ways across the United States. I’m being challenged as I realize that I’ve been so steeped in a ‘me-’ culture growing up that it can difficult for me to dream about community like JWH talks about.
Also, I ran across this piece that Shane Claiborne (I talk about him way too much, I think…) wrote 8 years ago titled Downward Mobility in an Upscale World while exploring the Speaking of Faith site over on NPR. The piece issues a radical challenge (well, radical from my limited perspective…) to leave our walled existences, go beyond charity, and really get to know the poor and the oppressed. I gotta say I was pretty shaken after I read it, it really made me think about how I understood the world.
This idea of ‘knowing the poor’ really struck me when I was thinking about the recent fires up in the Valley. I know tons of people who live up there (people from my church, mostly), so I was definitely on edge on their behalf and in prayer for them. But I was thinking about the thousands of kids who die of starvation every day who I don’t know, who I have built no connection to. When I go to sleep they aren’t on my mind. And I don’t know what’s up with that. I was reflecting on Lyricks’ Deliver Me video again, and I was really struck by the parts where text like “he was my best friend” juxtaposed with a picture of a youth with an AK-47, and “she was my mother” laid over a picture of a woman sick, dying, or dead. It seems so easy to not know the poor, to not know those who are suffering, to stop paying attention when we are overwhelmed or distracted.
But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.” -Luke 10:29-37
