Posted by giveawayboy on February 23, 2003 at 22:57:50:
forgive me for seeming to pressure things on this message board. i am often home (lack a car) and for me community often takes the form of message boards. Also, I sometimes assume that as Christians or perhaps people of other spiritual persuasions we will naturally have much in common to share, but that idealistic notion has often proven wrong. if anything we often are not aware of the things that truly unite us and we seem to exist in these realities which seem unrelated.
i had a great experience w ryan recently. he is reading some christian mysticism books and working on some personal problems and getting ready for a move while I am really getting into Dave Bianco, Brasilian bands like Os Mutantes, Latin American artists like Fernando Villanueva, Helio Oiticica, etc. The neat thing was that in our specifics we did not have much in common, but we strove to get into the interests of the other guy. it was amazing at the end of the night (we went to a park and talked) just how much our apparently different interests were relating to each other. I think ryan and i had something that all of us have, but perhaps don't exercise often enough--namely the ability to 'get into another person's world'. no one says it's easy. Christ got into our world, and i believe that we have the power from him to do the same w each other. it takes work and creativity sometimes.
i have seen this work before too. my old pastor's son, who hated to go to church to listen to his dad preach, was fascinated by dragons and wizards and racecars. he would sit in church and draw these over and over on a pad i brought for him. anyway, later, i knew alot about why he liked dragons and wizards and racecars. ultimately, i never got far past that, but right before i moved away, he invited me to come to his house and see a suprise. when i got there i realized that he LOVED Lego's. apparently he had built this whole pirate ship in Lego's and had been waiting to show me. it was also a point of connection between him and his parents, who had helped him. i guess i'm sharing this to say that working at relationships is a process. we need to work and give each other a chance to come out of our shells. i think that relating to his dragons and racecars, got me to the Lego stage. perhaps on message boards we could go alot further. if we go through the 'dragon and racecar stage' we might progress to the 'Lego stage' and more. but if we don't start somewhere, we won't even get to the first point. i'm not trying to rag on anyone here. i just feel like we have a great resource available to us here in this and other forums. i would hate that we would not avail ourselves of these tools more regularly. especially as christians, i feel that we should be more open to dialogue, interaction, whatever. that is my take on it. no condemnation, instead invitation.
one more thing about 'getting into another's world'. and i'm no expert here, but this has helped me. not being god, it's hard for me to know what it is that excites or motivates people--i'm not the searcher of hearts. also, i can't treat people in this cookie cutter fashion that applies the same realtionship 'techniques' to all people regardless of how they are unique. so, this has worked for me. often, when encountering new people, i will pray that god shows me how to best relate to them. i try to find Christ hidden in them, even if they aren't christian, the image of god can be seen in them, even if marred by the effects of sin. i look for that. also, i try not to make people into projects by expecting any 'results' from a possible friendship w them. i do try to honestly love people and this takes a diff. form w each individual friend. also, when not having much in common w people, i might ask God to show me the key to this person's heart. this meaning, that god might show me the best way to talk to them. i ask god to show me something that the person loves to talk about. something that is close to the center of their heart. perhaps it's music. perhaps it's a videogame. perhaps it's their cat. perhaps it's a special person in their life. it could be one of a million and a half things. the neat thing is that by asking God to reveal these things to us, we can make better connections w people, faster than we could only thinking w our earthly wisdom. it's amazing what will happen when we use the resources he puts at our disposal. also, once we get into another's world, we will realize how much our world's are related. it ultimately changes our view of god, them and ourselves.
later, Bill