Open Door

You know, it is such a welcome surprise to realize that faith can be held responsibly and beautifully. Faith seemed so ugly to me for so long. Tonight, I read the thoughts of a friend of mine about his faith, and saw only the beauty. All the old, ugly associations with all those old words of the faith were gone, and I could hear what he was really saying. Somebody has healed me.

This past Sunday, I visited a worship service at a place called The Open Door Community, and I saw a world so simple and so much better than the one I live in. It's a community that formed around some of the civil rights revolutions of the 60's and a commitment to take the Bible seriously. The Bible, folks. When they say the Bible, they mean Matthew 25 "When I was hungry, thirsty, naked, outside your door, in prison..." So that's what they do. They feed people, they welcome people, clean their feet, give them showers, medicine, visit them in prison, help their relatives visit them in prison, and fight for the social changes that will slowly and painfully make their plight a little easier. Literally, that is all these people do, and they do it everyday. What really surprised me about these folks, though, is that for them, poor people, imprisoned people, ethnically different people, aren't a "them." They're an "us." We're all the same, all just people. of course. They live together, they help each other, show hospitality to each other. I don't know how they do it. I've been reading about their history and am discovering, of course, that it took a long long time and lots and lots of trial and error. I initially went to the service to do an ethnographic study on them for a class, and I was really frustrated that I couldn't tell who the homeless people were and who the volunteers were. Who's the ministry and who's the ministered to? But they're all both, all different, all with their own stories to tell, but all together. I've honestly never seen anything like it. All of them seemed to find loving and welcoming so easy, so natural.

I think they've got "it" figured out, more than anyone I've ever seen. I want to sell all my things and live with them forever.