Live My Life
Bren Dubay
November 2017
In a play I wrote, Irish Mist, the central character, Jamie O’Hanlon, refuses to use the word “friend.” She also never speaks the word “love.” To her, both words are empty — spoken frequently, but rarely meaning anything beyond the superficial and shallow. Of course, if you know anything about dramatic writing, the play has to be about friendship and the deep, abiding love that can come with it. And it is.
In a social science study I read a few years ago, data showed that the average close relationship lasts seven years. What does “close” mean in the context of this study? How does the data and the vision of friendship it offers square with “There is no greater love than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends (John 15:13)?” To me, there is something longer than seven years in that verse.
Numbers are on our mind at Koinonia these days — in particular, the number 75. What does it mean to live in a religious community that turned 75 years old this year? Data doesn’t support the likelihood of a community like ours making it this long. Perhaps the world would tell us that Koinonia, therefore, is a success and has a bright future ahead. I see that word “success” and recall what Clarence Jordan, one of our co-founders, shared in an interview not too long before he died: “We are called not to be successful but to be faithful. I hope the future will find us faithful.”
In an article published a few months after his death, Clarence was quoted, “…Love is never ‘strategic.’ The minute you love your wife so that she will cook you a steak, it isn’t love any more but a polluted form of selfishness. You believe deep down that love does good, but that’s not the reason you love. You love for love’s own sake. Ours [Koinonia] has been a struggle for integrity. What will come of it? I hope we can say, ‘We’ve been obedient.’”
But to what are we faithful and obedient? Are we to be faithful and obedient to social and political causes? As good and worthwhile as causes are, I do not believe this is it. Isn’t there something before? Shouldn’t there be something deeper, something out of which the work for causes is born? Are we to be faithful and obedient to Jesus? What in the world does that mean and how are we to know if we are? What would the core be?
Simplified, Jesus said, “Live my life.” Simplified, Jesus said, “Be friends.” At Koinonia, we struggle to be faithful and obedient to this way of friendship, to this way of love. We love our neighbor and our enemies. We welcome. We serve.
And we long for others to come live this way of life with us. We pray for more friends willing to lay down their lives, pick up Jesus’ life, and live out their days with us. There is no greater love.
August 9 is a day of anniversaries. It marks both the day the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and the day Michael Brown was killed. Regardless of political alignments, it cannot be argued this day holds loss of life and lack of peace. The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought an end to World War II, but they certainly did not bring about world peace. Wars continued after the bombs fell and the half-century following was filled with unease and fear of more bombs.
In the days following Michael Brown’s death in 2014, people were quick to place their own personal politics over the situation, deciding who was right and who was wrong. Social media became a battleground filled with anger and a sense of injustice. Heroes were lauded and villains were maligned. Everyday conversations quickly turned to issues of race and systemic injustice. Peace seemed far from anyone’s words or thoughts.
In the dining hall on Koinonia Farm, the community lights a candle everyday at lunch to remind its members to pray for peace. The candle serves as a concrete symbol for an often abstract and difficult charge: peace through reconciliation. Usually someone reads a biography of a peacemaker to educate and inspire those eating lunch. In a dining hall of anywhere from 20-50 people, one can safely assume not everyone is in agreement across political or religious opinions. But one thing every member of the community commits to is working for peace through reconciliation.
One thing that stood out in the aftermath of the death of Michael Brown was the amount of angry voices and opinions flying around. People were literally and figuratively shouting at one another. Anger certainly has its place and injustice should be called out, fought against, and stopped. But it felt like a whole lot of shouting and talking and opining without any listening. In the face of such big problems as racial tension and loss of life, the solutions must be complicated and nuanced. The only way to work toward peace and reconciliation is to listen: to hear what each side is saying, to understand why people are angry, to realize different people experience life in very different ways.
The problems of injustice and racial tensions in this nation need people willing to sit down with others who do not look like them or think like them to listen. Just listening will not solve all the problems and this is not a call to sit down and stop talking about uncomfortable issues. Instead, it is an encouragement to begin with listening. The conversation does not need more opinions. It needs more people willing to listen and learn from each other. And maybe this small step- much like the small symbol of lighting a candle- will be a way to begin to reconcile and bring about peace.
Now, a year later, one is tempted to ask if the problems have been solved yet and realize with despair that the world seems no closer to peace than it did a year ago. Christians pray for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, but this prayer can often be more discouraging than anything. More people have died since Michael Brown. The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki did end World War II, but they certainly did not end all war. It is tempting to forget one tragedy in the wake of a new tragedy. Every day is a new anniversary for someone’s death, another injustice, another natural disaster. The work for peace through reconciliation is not for the faint of heart. It is for those who can pray even when it seems nothing will ever change. It is for those who chose to listen day after day even when the angry rhetoric seems never ending. It is for those who understand the power of even the smallest move toward reconciliation.
Peace through reconciliation is not easy, but it is good and necessary work that can be done by anyone anywhere. All it takes is a willingness to show up, offer grace and a listening ear, and have faith that small steps lead to big changes.
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