LIVING ROOM MEMORIES  225 

(March 10, 2009)

I’m so very excited I don’t know what to do with myself. Just want to pour out all the good stuff I read in a book, stuff that really spoke to me of things I know but have never seen the words for written in such a powerful way. I want to write about these things, talk about them, act on them. And I really don’t think I’m manic, or even hypomanic…I don’t think. It’s just so neat to see your feelings focused into such great thoughts.

The book is Jesus Wants to Save Christians by Rob Bell and Don Golden. It’s about what Jesus intended the church to be and how many have lost their way.

The authors quote Anne Lamott who said that the most powerful sermon in the world is two words: “Me too.”

They they go on to say:

Me too.

When you are struggling,
when you are hurting,
wounded, limping, doubting,
questioning, barely hanging on,
moments away from another relapse,
and somebody can identify with you –
someone knows the temptations that are at your door,
somebody has felt the pain you are feeling,
when someone can look you in the eyes and say, ‘Me too,’
and they actually mean it –
it can save you.

When you aren’t judged,
or lectured,
or looked down upon,
but somebody demonstrates that they get it,
that they know what it’s like,
that you aren’t alone,
that’s ‘me too.’

I was so excited about this because that’s exactly the way Living Room is. That’s what makes our group work. That’s what’s so healing about it. That’s what makes us like a church – like church should be for everyone. Only church isn’t always like that. Too often people are judged, looked down on, shunned. If only all Christians could learn – when they meet someone who is different – someone who has bipolar disorder or schizophrenia – to listen to them and try to understand them. If they could only enter into their suffering when they suffer…and then rejoice with them when they rejoice. Isn’t that what Christian love is supposed to be all about?