"who are my mother and my brothers?"

I wrote a few days ago about concerns that getting more involved here might be causing me to forget or compromise the convictions I've held in the past. It focused a lot on money. Now I think that was just a surface issue. The deeper effect of getting more involved is that it tends to connect our identity more to that of the group. I think that is closer to the source of what I have been experiencing.

I became aware of it as I was thinking about the "visitation" this coming weekend. A few experienced friends are coming from outside the community for a routine visit to assess the health of the community and offer suggestions. A good practice, I think. But this time it's a bit worrisome, since there are some significant problems here, interpersonal ones and also larger group issues, mostly involving decisions about leadership. And as I thought about it, I realized I felt anxious, even embarrassed.

That seems to come from identifying with the problems of the group. Worry or shame about "our" problems, about who "we" are. Somehow I've taken them on as my problems, even though I'm not specifically involved, and the outcome of the disputes won't even affect me terribly. Part of it is that I've tried to help a bit, tried to give advice or challenges (not very successfully). So I got involved in that way and I care about how it all turns out, and care about the people. And I guess this has caused me to feel as if the problems are my own, something to worry about or feel embarrassed about when others see the mess.

I can see how I've been drawn in, by caring, and by trying to get involved and encourage a healing response. But, really, is this the "we" that I identify with? "Who are my mother and my brothers? ...Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother."

This probably is much like what people experience with their families. Having not chosen that group and feeling connected to the problems (perhaps even actively trying to help) and yet not being able to set things right. Feeling shackled to a "we" that is not the identity we desire for ourselves, and not truly who "we" are. Jesus spoke to that.

Not that I want to cut myself off, but just set aside the unnecessary anxieties and shame and miseries that are not really mine. As I wrote several months ago, I think grief is the appropriate feeling, the feeling of love in this situation. A free connection to others, not an unchosen shackling. And a feeling that need not drag us down, because it unites us with God's grief, with God himself, who bears the weight of it.