Biblical Popularity

I seem to remember high school had a clear pecking order. At the top were the cool people: athletes, cheer leaders, people with hot cars, or fake id's, then there was everyone who aspired to be with the cool people, and at the bottom were outcasts, folks that nobody seem to want to hang with. At all costs you wanted to avoid being with the people who were not smart enough, pretty enough or clean enough to stay out of the social cellar. Instead, a huge part high life was about finding a way to get close enough to the cool people to be considered "popular." That is where you expected to find meaningful community.

Not so in the Community of the King. This past year I watched a Kingdom Village surround us in our weakness. So many calls, meals and prayers came our way once Nancy was diagnosed, as chemo dragged on, and as we learned that the journey would be short. Dozens of folks whom she had never met, or barely knew came to this blog to share her journey home. Old friends and family came for long delayed visits. Friendships that had cooled were reawakened. Family relationships that were strained were strengthened. She had devoted her life to making HIM famous, and she would have given her life to repair some of the breaches we saw healed this year. In a real sense, she did. The gift of her weakness created the space for love to flourish.

I discovered more about the nature of love and marriage than I could ever have imagined as her capacity to actively "give back" disappeared. Her final weakness sealed the lessons on love I had been learning from her for 34 years. And I trust HIM to give me the places to impart those lessons to others.

But there is nothing new in this part of the story. Nothing unique. The greatest act of weakness in all of history created the space for all true love. The Cross under girds all real community. The One who set aside all power and authority to surrender to weakness and death has built a community powerful enough to reverse the curse.

I remember Henri Nouwen introduced this concept to me through his writing, but Nancy "the most popular girl I ever knew" lived this before me until she left me four months ago today.