To Begin With
By Andrea Lingle
To love God and neighbor and to trust that that is enough.
That is the Missional Wisdom Foundation’s goal, vision, and mission.
Yes, but, how? How when the world is large and vicious? How when money is tight and energy is short? How when the church is known for its penchant for exclusion and sand-drawn lines?
Well…to begin with: relationship.
It all begins with relationship. In his book, Together, Larry Duggins writes,
It is the very nature of God to exist in relationship. God exists as a unique interactive relationship between three distinct but inseparable persons who share a single substance and power. God is three and God is one simultaneously in a cooperative relationship that shares everything.
(Duggins, Together, 4)
If the Divine is relationship, then to participate in the Divine must involve relationship. Luke Lingle, a UMC Pastor and my husband, likes to say that, “Relationship is the center of the circle.” It is the hub. Whatever the ministry is that you want to do, however you want to participate in evangelism, wherever it is that you feel the call of the Spirit, it all turns on relationship.
A few pages later in Together, Duggins talks about how the Genesis story in chapter 2 (the creation of Eve in response to Adam’s loneliness) reveals something fundamentally relational in humanity.
From the very beginning of life, the human feels a fundamental need that is only fulfilled through a relationship with another person. That need is not fulfilled by time spent with other creatures and it is not fulfilled by work. Apparently, it is not even fulfilled by a relationship with God! It is only satisfied by a relationship with another human. The human comes to learn, through lived experience, that he needs to be in relationship with God and another human to be fulfilled.
(Duggins, Together, 10)
Yes, but, how? How when we are busy, isolated behind our garage doors and screens? How when the other seems threatening? How when life is lived according to a detailed planner?
We believe in development at the pace of walking. Slowly. Walking as if walking were the goal. It doesn’t make sense. Sometimes we have to do less. Sometimes the work of relationship means the productivity drops a little. Sometimes when you love another, you get hurt. Sometimes relationship breaks. But it remains the center of the heart of the Missional Wisdom Foundation’s vision. It is worth the risk.
The closing scenes of the musical Les Misérables revolve around the death of the aged protagonist, Jean Valjean. Finally at peace after a lifelong struggle for mercy and justice, Valjean, with the spirits of Fantine and Eponine, whom he loved and each of whom helped shape Valjean into a figure of grace, reminds us of “the truth that once was spoken: to love another person is to see the face of God.”
This is community as a means of grace.
(Duggins, Together, 31)