Monday, July 26, 2010

Passing of a torch

In ancient times, in Ireland, whole communities would say good-bye, forever, to friends that had been called to a living martyrdom. Leaving their family, their clan, their people, to follow the Wild Goose (the ancient Irish name for The Holy Spirit).
Either Green Martyrdom - wandering Irish soil until the Spirit would tell them, here, this is your "place of resurrection", or,
White Martyrdom - leaving the shores of Ireland never to return.

I imagine that for a people that held friendship and community among their highest values, this was a certain type of death, for all involved.

Following are the contents of a card our community received from another community. The C'Ville Project has been serving Jesus and friends in our city for 5 years. They are a beautiful group of people who invited my family in for rest early in our transition to Charlottesville, and several times since.

Their founders, Jonathan and Christa, have been called to transition. Their final destination is unclear at this writing. They go with our prayers, our love, and the wish that we had more time to spend with them.

The card:
One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time - Andre Gide

To the Curach Community,
We don't know each other well and it feels a little like we're tossing a package from one boat to another here, but we wanted to encourage and challenge you as you enter into a season and we wrap one up.
Our little community has been based in Charlottesville and have been together 5 years and are now dispersing. It's been an amazing journey that has shaped us in ways we don't even know yet.
It's sad to be ending, but it's exciting too - like shoving off in a curach again.

We're really excited to see new things springing up in Charlottesville and really cool to hear about your community and your love for Jesus, desire to build relationships with the poor and homeless in C'Ville, and your choice to live honest, courageous lives together.

We believe you are called, we believe it will be costly, (already is, for sure), and believe it's worth it. We pray that you will not carry more than Jesus asks you to, that you will love and be loved, and that you will embrace the calling you are receiving, especially when it looks different than you expect. This money is a gift from our community to yours - an investment in the invisible.

- The elders of the C.V.P
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Our Values

We seek to gather family here in Charlottesville. At a pace that results in peace and health.
We relate deeply with the ancient Irish Church. Though our style does not include the traditions or liturgy of the Irish, or any other, the values of the Irish are close to our own.

Values like:

Love - the center of all that we believe

Heroic hospitality - to draw out and extend our souls to another, along with meeting physical needs, as a community.

Pilgrimage - followers of Christ are just that, He is our Lord, so, we seek to respect the conscience of each person, if the Lord is moving someone, as a community we should bless them. Pilgrimage is a lifelong following of the Holy Spirit. Check out: Ps84:5 Blessed is the man whose strength is in You, Whose heart is set on pilgrimage. (read on, it's a beautiful chapter)

Facilitation of Life - creating a safe place where all of us can grow healthy and become whole.

Spiritual community - a one on one friendship is our primary relationship ideally (this was known to the ancient Irish as the Anam Cara relationship) -
Our secondary relationship would be something like a home group, or a smaller gathering of some kind -
The larger, corporate gathering would be considered our tertiary spiritual community, one that offers sanctuary for time with God and each other.