The Fragile Gift of Community

There are days, to tell the truth, that you just have to wonder if it's worth it to try to live in community. It's sort of like marriage and family life: It's a great idea, but the reality requires more blood, sweat, and tears than anybody ever told you about ahead of time. And sometimes you just wonder.

You stir a soup pot, and it seems there are always more hungry people at the door. You open the shower line, but more hot, sweaty, dirty bodies appear the minute you've finished. You visit the prisoners, but for every visit there are five more unaddressed needs. You work to devise strategies to stop the death penalty, and the state just sets another execution date. You sit down to pray, but the cacophony of your thoughts and feelings won't lie still long enough to get through a simple "Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner."

We live together out of a commitment to the love that Christ gives us to share as a body, but sometimes it seems the best we can do is still to fail each other. And sometimes we just wonder: Is it worth it? Wouldn't it be better (and is that the same as easier?) just to give up? To go back to a more traditional lifestyle--one that's not so weird or isolated or cut off from the mainstream culture?

Some time ago, a little cardboard box came in the mail from St. John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota. Inside were a simple pottery bowl and cup. They were crafted as a eucharistic set by Richard Bresnahan, trained as a master potter in Japan, and sent to us through a friend, Frank Cordaro, of the Catholic Worker network. The message said that an identical cup and bowl had been sent to every Catholic Worker house in the country. (We are very honored to be considered a "Presbyterian Catholic Worker.") Frank wrote:

These eucharistic sets are a gift to you from the potter and our community. We wish to thank you for your special ministry to the poor and your ongoing struggle for justice for a world where it will be "easier to be good." These earthen vessels were formed after the simple soup bowls and water glasses that are the common utensils in the hospitality houses. We hope they serve to remind you of the links between your work with the poor and the work of the potters here at St John's.

Richard the potter added the note, "It is with great hope that the love and care taken by so many to create a piece of earth for everyday uses is enjoyed by those who inherit the earth."

A GIFT OF SIMPLE earthen vessels. The vessels are to hold for us the body and blood of Jesus Christ. They sit on the little table at the center of our worshiping circle each Sunday night, and we pass them to each other even as our brother Jesus passed them to us. We gather around the table because we know something--perhaps not enough, but at least something--about our own weakness and failings and fragility. We know that if we serve the poor, it is not because we are good or loving or smart. It is because--and only because--of the mercy of Jesus Christ, who lives among us and teaches us to forgive one another.

The earthen vessels are very fragile, and so are we. Their only strength is because of the fire of the kiln, and so it is with our strength. They come to us as a gift and a reminder: We are not alone. God has not abandoned us; neither have our sisters and brothers abandoned us. God comes to us each day through the Spirit and through our homeless and imprisoned friends. God comes to us through the scriptures, through the sacraments, and through prayer. God comes to us through an amazingly wide circle of friends who support us in our work through gifts of shared work, money, letters, and words of encouragement.

When things seem the most bleak and desperate, we must often remind ourselves that we are saved not by our own plans or work but by God's good grace. When the confused and hurt disciples walked the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus, they had lost their sense of purpose and direction. The stranger who joined them on the road eloquently illuminated the scriptures, but still they were confused. It was only when the stranger was welcomed into their home, gave thanks, and broke the bread that they recognized him. And they jumped out of their seats: "Didn't our hearts burn within us?"

When our hearts burn within us, we usually figure it was the soup. But in the ongoing work, in what seems at times to be pure drudgery--the grimy, sweaty business of cleaning pots and cooking and driving a rattling car to the prison--we look up only to discover that Jesus was with us all along.

We come together out of love: love of the poor, love of God, love of each other. But our love is so shallow. It is never enough. We find ourselves too easily becoming judgmental and haughty and bitter. We turn our backs on each other, on God, and on the cry of our sisters and brothers who suffer around us, and we must cry out again and again to God, "Take away my heart of stone and give me a heart of flesh."

The simple earthen vessels remind us of so many truths. They remind us that we ourselves are simple earthen vessels, created for the simple purpose of holding the life and love that come to us from God. They remind us of the deep connection between the soup bowls and teacups of our kitchen tables and the pottery bowl and cup of our eucharistic table. They remind us that community is a fragile gift from God to be held gently with hearts full of gratitude.

Murphy Davis was director of the Southern Prison Ministry and a member of The Open Door Community in Atlanta when this article appeared. This article first appeared in Hospitality, a publication of the Open Door community.