Saints and Sinners: Understanding #2

The Lindisfarne Community's common life revolves around our Understandings.  These fifteen statements address the core concepts that describe how we engage with God and each other.  The first understanding clarifies what the understandings mean for us. (You can see my thoughts on that one just below.) The second one addresses a fundamental truth of all human communities, even idealistic religious ones.

First, our community must be for "sinners," not for "saints."  The quotation marks are the clue: we are real-life, imperfect people, not plaster saints waiting for our coronations in heaven!  But more than that, the understanding goes on to point out that joining inevitably means that our expectations for being part of a religious community will be, in the words of the text, shattered.  

How could it be otherwise?  While I might wish it to be otherwise, God did not put you all here to meet my exalted expectations!  We are wonderfully different from one another, decidedly willing to walk a different path from our mainstream backgrounds (for those of us who have mainstream backgrounds), and radically open to the Holy Spirit, who is not exactly known for encouraging conformity.

Refreshing and challenging at the same time, the call to imperfection, for each of us and for the collective, is a necessary step on the road to reality.  There's a Rumi quote that makes the rounds from time to time, "The wound is the place where the Light enters you."  Understanding #2 reminds us that our job is to welcome the Light, not patch over the cracks!