“For where two or three are gathered together in My name,
I am there in the midst of them.”
Matthew 18:20
Last week, my publisher sent me a list of questions to answer about my fourth book. They’ll be used to generate press coverage when it's released next year.
One of those questions was this: What do you hope readers will learn or experience when they read Under the Bayou Moon?
Part of my answer: I wrote this book primarily in 2020, the most difficult year many of us have ever experienced. I had a lot on my mind, namely, our need for community, which I believe is God-given . . .
I had never given it much thought before, but I do believe our need for community is divinely inspired. It’s part of our spiritual DNA. Yesterday, Dave and I distance-visited with our good friends Rod and Mari, and we all talked about how much we want to reconnect with our circle, once “This” is over. That visit made me remember a passage from Reverend Timothy Keller’s The Reason for God:
“The Hebrew word for this perfect, harmonious interdependence among all parts of creation is called shalom.We translate it as “peace,” but the English word is basically negative, referring to the absence of trouble or hostility. The Hebrew word means so much more than that. It means absolute wholeness—full, harmonious, joyful, flourishing life.”
Wholeness. Full, harmonious, joyful, flourishing life. Doesn’t seem entirely possible right now, given our physical separation from each other, does it? Aren’t we all planning what we’ll do first, once our world is “back to normal”? Or do we even think that’s possible? I’ve heard so many friends and family ask the same question: Do you think things will ever be like they were before?
We don’t know. We hope so. Then again, maybe we’ve learned to appreciate community—and communion—more. Maybe we’ll work harder to protect it. Maybe we’ll come back better, having learned the value of things we took for granted. Maybe we’ll think more about each other and less about ourselves. Maybe we’ll be humbly grateful for the divine communion that can sustain us when there’s nothing else to hold onto.
“The Christian gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me. This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time. It undermines both swaggering and sniveling. I cannot feel superior to anyone and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone. I do not think more of myself nor less of myself. Instead, I think of myself less.” —Timothy Keller
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