The faith community we are part of is broke

Not going broke, not struggling, not making plans or circling the wagons or even hunkering down.

We are broke.

We are struggling to meet our bills,  behind in paying stuff like rent & electricity.  Our pastors have had times they've waited to be paid.

A year ago, it was a close match between giving & expenses.  This past fall, the meltdown started in housing, then the banks, then in families' retirements & savings.  By December, we had more people without jobs than any of the other 8 churches I have been a part of.   The new year looks even tougher already.  Local companies are reducing salaries, cutting jobs, pulling contractors.

We are not quite sure what is happening, what will happen.  We have more people who are part of the community gathered than a year ago.  There are more needs in the community being engaged than we could ever imagine.  This is a thriving, vital scrum of Jesus followers - people you can collapse on when the pain seems too great or when things unravel.  These are the first people you want to tell good news to, people you want your kids to learn love from.  Our faith community dances in a way that feels like the Trinity that is God Almighty (as well as the central hero of The Matrix).

What is certain is that our faith community is the very essence of what the feminist theologian Rebecca Chopp defines as a "constitutive community of emancipatory transformation".   I just love how that phrase breaks apart:

constitutive: In cell biology, a constitutively active protein is a protein whose activity is constant and active
community: In biological terms, a community is a group of interacting organisms sharing an environment
emancipatory: in legal terms, to free from bondage, oppression, or restraint; liberate
transformation: in moral terms, a change in disposition, heart, character, or the like; what the preacher calls conversion

Desmond Tutu talks of something very similar to a "constitutive community of emancipatory transformation" when describes the African ethos of ubuntu:

A community with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.

Yes, that is certain.  This faith community, like so many others, is brimming with ubuntu, it is a "constitutive community of emancipatory transformation", lives are being changed and daily conversions happening a plenty.

What is also certain:  we are broke.  Like so many other faith communities, like so many other institutions, like so many people - we are broke.

Broke is a funny word - it has more than 100 meanings.  It comes from the Latin word frangere, which describes something fragile.  It's the start of a horse race, a solo passage in jazz, an opening in an electrical circuit,  to contest in a court of law successfully.   

In our world that processes meaning via money, broke can translate to words like bankrupt, beggared, cleaned out, destitute, dirt poor,  impoverished, in Chapter 11, in debt, indebted, indigent, insolvent, needy, penniless, penurious, poor, ruined, stone broke, strapped, tapped out. 

In poems & song lyrics, hearts are broken.  There is actually a medical condition called "Broken Heart Syndrome", also called stress cardiomyopathy, which is an acute, severe cardiac condition,  triggered by an episode of extreme emotional trauma. 

In sports, records are broken and so are bones.

Effective organizations are solvent, the opposite of broke.  For a generation, we placed organizations on a pedestal if they were affluent, rich, wealthy. 

Our culture calls us to fix what is broken or discard it.  To fill up the opening, to secure what is fragile, to mend the broken heart.  Good people can  conjure up a bailout or a rescue or at the very least a marketing plan - hell, we can have a bake sale or a walk-a-thon or a benefit concert for people or communities who are broke.

The faith community we are part of is broke.  We are not quite sure what is happening, what will happen. 

My deepest soul sings out that something gorgeous is in this place of broken-ness, that being broke is a token of our divinity/humanity, our affinity with all who are ruined or without a meal or on the streets. 

We are broke, something dawning through the breaks, a path forcing it way through the very cracks, new life breaking free.

We are broke...

Andy Goldsworthy installation
image from www.52photographers.com

Comments

[Barbara McWilliams]

Greetings~ Dear Ones,
Some of you are to young to remember what the 70’s movement was really all about. There was a major recession in the early 70’s and there were so many of us (baby boomers) there just wasn’t enough to go around.
Everything: housing,food & transportation needed to be saved, shared and recycled. The real hippie movement (conservatives of the time, mocked & distorted the truth)was really a large recession response. Our clothes were ragged and funny (from mending & patching) however they were cleaned w/biodegradeable products, we shared housing, food (grown in our own gardens) & transportation/hitch hiking.
We were then,where we are, today. Relax, we made it fun, see it all turned around. Now, you have the opportunity to start over, please don’t make the same mistakes: don’t buy on credit and save something for a rainy day. In essence, we took control of the situation - we didn't allow the situation to control us. Of course we know Jesus loves us, he is giving us another chance HE IS ONE OF US

[itsgonnabefine]

faith based communities that are doing good by man can be helped...see the millions, no, billions of dollars that are chasing receivers/end user-spenders from the current stimulus plan