neighborliness

My friend Doug knows what it means to be a good neighbor. He came over at 9:00 a couple nights ago to help me install a new dishwasher. We got a late start because we’d each had very long workdays.

The installation didn’t follow the script. (Do they ever, I wonder?). It was impossible to discern which breaker the electrical was wired to so we turned them all off. Of course, that meant doing much of the job by flashlight.

The not-so-helpful instructions estimated the job should take between one and three hours. Doug left our house at 1:00 in the morning. He was still smiling. Perhaps even more striking was the utter absence of profanity! That’s a good neighbor. In fact, for those four hours at least, I’d say Doug’s neighborliness bordered on the saintly.

Grace arrives in many forms. I’ve found, though, that it usually involves a palpably personal and relational element. Grace usually entails somebody choosing to be available as its conduit.



Copyright Scott Burnett 2006

Wisdom (Cognitive Balance)

Wisdom is not a one-dimensional quality. It is something like an intersection of knowledge and understanding with commonsense… A cultivated awareness of the big picture along with attentiveness to detail… Consistent, tenacious, and ready for change... Open-hearted with clear, strong boundaries…

Wisdom seems to presume and produce thoroughgoing balance. While its varied streams and currents seem to flow in and out through the mind, it certainly involves much more than cognition; it’s a whole-soul endeavor. Furthermore, it makes no sense in isolation: wisdom is relational.

Copyright Scott Burnett 2006

Trinity

The Trinity illuminates perfect relationality, showing the simultaneous, interpenetrating, and ongoing processes of communion and differentiation. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit submerge within the One Triune God, and emerge as distinct, unique facets of the Trinity they create.

conflict & disillusionment

Conflict confirms individuation as persons face the inevitable challenge of dismissing neither their own nor the other’s place, perspective, and prerogative within the group.

Disillusionment affirms the process of authenticating genuine relationality as individuals are freed from their illusions about one another and their community.

absorption & transcendence

Self-absorption is a symptom of relational entropy.
It exacerbates fragmentation.

Self-transcendence, on the other hand, integrates the self within a greater meaning .
It paradoxically deepens identity and propels individuation.

"It takes all sorts to make a world; or a church. This may be even truer of a church. If grace perfects nature it must expand all our natures into the full richness of the diversity which God intended when He made them, and Heaven will display far more variety than Hell."

C.S. Lewis

Attentiveness

“One of those who heard us was Lydia from Thyatira, who was a dealer in purple cloth. She was a woman who worshiped God, and the Lord opened her mind to pay attention to what Paul was saying.” Acts 16:14

Attentiveness is a gift we give one another. True communication isn’t something that can be done to someone – only with someone.

Sometimes communication amounts to a minor miracle: Mutual, soul-deep understanding requires the touch of the divine.