Good morning, everyone. Here are two Bonhoeffer quotations. They are both taken from Celtic Daly Prayer from the Northumbria Community. The first, if I recall correctly, is from Life Together. I believe the second is as well, but I am not entirely certain.
The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands thet it be realized by God, by others and by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, his own law, and judges the prethren and himself accordingly. He acts as if eh is the creator of community, as if it is his dream which holds the community together. When things do not go his way, he calls the effort a failure. When his ideal pleasure is destroyed, he sees the community going to smash. So, he becomes first an accuser of his brethren, then God, then the despising accuser of himself.The second quotation reads thusly...
The renewal of the church will come from a new type of monasticism, which has only in common with the old an uncompromising allegiance to the Sermon on the Mount. It is high time men and women banded together to do this.I have been pondering once again what it means to have a vision, a dream of something. The proof is in the pudding, I realize, and I like pudding. But it is a fine line to walk, as Bonhoeffer suggests, to live into a dream. Any vision, no matter how inspired by the Holy Spirit, is still housed in flesh...as it should be. It cannot be realized otherwise, but it is always a trial.
And, somehow, this thought is connected to this nitpicking question: What is the difference between a congregation and a Christian community? I am thinking lately that I must be toting around an old definintion that needs some updating.
Posted by tripp at March 15, 2006 05:46 AM