ME or WE?

"Its all about me" this cognition is the subconscious voice of the western mind. This ideal powers our ambitions, goals, and dreams. The underlining thought of any child's first fight often stem from one of two places; mine! Or NO! Both serve the purpose of feeding the subconscious human Freud names the Id. As we develop our sense of self and cultural identity, the culture we live in target's and re-enforces individualism. Though we as people all desire to be unique, special, one-of-a-kind, the deepest part of us knows though we experience the world as an individual we also long to experience life as a collective people.

Since the beginning God designed people to be social. We throw party's when someone's born into the group, neighbors participate in community events, churches gather to worship,  and children assemble for their education. A step closer examines family units, gatherings,  deep friendships, and parenting. Our DNA thirsts for CNA (community nurturing and appriciation).

During a recent coffee excursion with my dad, I was reminded of two separate views of community involvement; "the one serving many vs. The many serving one." This traditional Ojibwe philosophy suggests as a people we must help and serve the members collectively; our duty is to function as one contributing member of the Ojibwe tribe. This philosophy looks very similar to Pauls take on the church as he puts it, "the hand cannot say to the foot I don't need you".

Community is not about losing a sense of self it's the fulfillment of our sense of self, identity,  belonging. I think people often are afraid of surrendering individualism believing they will lose their sense of meaning and purpose; in reality embracing our place in God's grand story actually increases our value as people. Jesus does love me in a very deep, personal, and real way, but im kidding myself if I start thinking God cannot move without Wes Wilson's approval. Buying into the American dream of self servitude basically promotes ourselves to God hood and demotes Jesus to a sweaty underprepared college intern to the real guy in charge; me. As my dad once taught my brotherand I in homeschool history class, "the reasom for history is to demonstrate his-story"

So how do you embrace our community and collective identity?  How do we embrace serving our God as a people? How do we live into something much bigger than ourselves?

It begins by replacing one belief with another. We need to start believing two things "it's not about me" and "i am part of something much bigger than myself".