You Don’t Become Alone (S12 E2)

yeah yeah well uh in uh in continuation with our conversation that we had in dc uh you know we like to say that we uh only become who we each each of us each of us only becomes by belonging to someone else and this is something that is modeled right out of triune life this notion of father son and spirit that we belong to jesus yes but via the spirit jesus belongs to the father and so we belong to them and so this notion of being a jesus follower isn't just a matter of you know some cognitive ascent to a way of thinking about the world and i ask jesus to forgive me of my sins and then that way i get to go to heaven it is this invitation to join a community and to live as the community lives And of course, this is a community of hospitality, but it's also a community of demand.

because I can't join the community and then, as it turns out, just live however I want to live.

And so this is what it means for us to be part of triune life, this notion that we read about in 1 John, the first chapter, the third verse, where the writer says, we declare these things about this life that has been revealed to us in order so that you may have fellowship with us as we have fellowship with the Son and the Father.

We, and so then it says, so that our joy might be complete.

This notion that my joy is made complete because someone says, y'all come home, welcome home.

into this space.

And this is reflected in the way our minds work, our embodied and relational structures.

The whole neuronal life of connection that you've got 100 billion neurons, but they're not all the same.

They have different functions and different domains, and they have to belong to one another.

in order for each domain of those neural forms to do their work.

I think of each of the three of us, you, Amy, me, we belong to each other, which enables each of us to become more of what each of us is intended to do for this podcast.

And in the same way you have these individual neurons, you have these domains of integration, my consciousness and my vertical domain, my body, my right and left hemisphere, my horizontal domain, my narrative domain, all eight of these domains that each required being differentiated from the other, but belonging to one another.

They have to have belonging.

And that belonging can't come together unless I, as a human, am also belonging to someone else who will help all that belonging take place in my mind.

But included in that belonging, included in that, in order for us to become, you know, oddly enough and counterintuitively, it also requires my capacity for repairing ruptures.

Ruptures are a normal part of developing secure attachment.

And that's something that we, you know, would not be my first choice.

I don't think like, oh yeah, I'll sign up for something.

I just want to have a straight line up and to the right on the graph.

There's no ruptures, there's nothing to contend with, and there's no demands placed.

I want to come into a place where I feel like I'm welcomed, but that doesn't require me to change my behavior, doesn't require me to give up my addictions, doesn't require me to see the world as God sees the world.

But it does, it demands that.

This is something that is reflected also in our creating new relationships, even where relationships have been wounded in the past, versus the disintegrating features of unrepaired ruptures, and that we're creating without violence as opposed to with violence.

We don't create anything with violence.

Wars, even when we stop a war, that war will only lead to the next war.