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"I was returning home from one of my morning walks when something shiny caught my eye. I stopped to investigate what I had spied in the shrubs. It was a most beautiful spider web—large and almost perfect in shape.
"No one was at home within the web, so I stood for a moment and studied the marvelous creation. I guess the kid in me made me want to reach out and touch it—so I did, ever so gently. And the whole web moved! I was intrigued, so I touched it again in a different spot. Once again the web trembled, and caught the sunlight.
"We are like that. Humanity is like an enormous spider web. If you touch it anywhere, you set the whole thing trembling. The life we touch for good or ill will touch another life, and who knows where the trembling will stop. Our lives are linked together. What we do with our life is important to us, yes—but it is also important to those around us."
(Ingrid Barrett, AHA! 11-22-00)
Myron Augsburger writes regarding the necessary accountability in community life:
Accountability and responsibility—these two words express crucial aspects of being human. No man is an island. We are a part of all whom we have met. … Once we recognize accountability we will accept responsibility to order our lives in a manner which will execute decisions consistent with our roles. Our conscience will not let us play games ….
(The Christ-Shaped Conscience)
Two truths are accepted and lived for a spiritual community or spiritual relationship to thrive: oneness and accountability. We do not create oneness, rather, lived-unity arises from an acknowledgement of the prior fact of an already-being-one. By virtue of our being Person, a sacred manifestation of the Spirit of Life, we are one with all persons. Lived-unity, or the living out of the practical implications of our oneness, is based on accountability. Individual freedom is, then, only within the context of the whole web of togetherness.
Ironically, to seek an expression of individual freedom that counters oneness is to fail to discover and enjoy individual freedom. However, lived union in freedom is founded, for persons seeking spiritual fulfillment, on giving God our freedom, knowing that it can only be rightly lived in respect for the Spirit. Megan Don writes, “Perhaps the true test of our spirituality is to ask, “Are you prepared to give God your freedom?” (Megan Don, Falling into the Arms of God). And Proverbs 1.7 reads, “The awe of the Living One is the beginning of insight.”
Spiritual Exercise
1. What do you see as the connection between oneness and accountability?
2. What is meant by “web of togetherness”?
3. What is the difference between lived-unity and already-being-one?
4. How does your spiritual community experience oneness? Accountability?
5. What does it mean to give God your freedom?
Prayer
Dear Life Giver, thank you for your love. Remind me daily that in you I can enjoy true, lasting freedom. May I have the wisdom and strength to nurture the spiritual community I am in and the relationships that are part of my spiritual journey.
Brian's book of mystical love poetry, An Ache for Union, can be ordered through major bookdealers.
Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors
The People of the
United Methodist Church
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