If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh?

Every time I draw blood from a patient I am amazed that the tube is so warm. Heat radiates out of it into my hands. Isn't that the strangest sensation ever? The heat of someone else's blood in your hands? Reminding you that everyone has that heat flowing through them...it's such a human thing...no...not a human thing...a life thing. No matter how sick or stable, how annoying or nice my patients are, their blood fills the tubes with warmth because they are not only human, but they are full of life.

I've been thinking a lot the past few days. We talk about community. What community looks like, what community is. We try to build community. We boldly say that being the Church is about Community. We want nothing more than to belong to a community that affirms us, that we have something to offer, and that challenges us to grow in multiple dimensions. Community requires responsibility: we have to be responsible and recognize how our values and actions impact the community. In this way we are held accountable by the values of our community. But I don't actually feel that there is accountability. I don't actually know what there is.

Ultimately, I think my issue is that I am not as liberal as I wish I could be. I'm still really grounded in my more conservative values, but since I am way too afraid of what other's will think of me, and way too afraid of hurting people I have taken a fence sitting policy. I say, "Well, this set of rules I believe exist are actually only rules for me. If someone else has found a different set of rules, then who am I to argue with them? Afterall, I'm not all that good at keeping the rules I acknowledge, so I better not question or 'throw any stones' at anyone else's rules" (Keeping in mind that when I say rules, I do not actually mean rules. I mean something I have no idea how to describe...kind of just the things God desires for us, beyond the whole 10 commandments and the Pharisee stuff).

I hate disagreeing with people. I want to agree with everyone. I know that's ridiculous, but it's so much better to be in agreement. You can't hurt someone by agreeing with them, you can't feel stupid for not really having any good reasons other than conviction if you agree with people. You don't need a reason to agree with anyone. Agreeing with them is good enough. So, when I can't agree, no matter how I try to make it fit, then does it mean I'm old-fashioned, conservative and awful? People will say no, because it's personal.

But how can a community, united by values, function when those values are free to change depending on circumstances, context, and are deemed "personal"? Is the only thing uniting a community the fact that we can fill a tube with hot blood?

I struggle so much with that. It's not difficult to love the people I don't agree with, and if you are reading this and I've ever disagreed with you, know that I love you, no questions asked. People are way too important to divide because of our choices! I'm just not sure what unites us anymore. (I don't mean little person-person relationships...I mean community). I hope it's more than hot blood running through our veins. I hope someone out there can tell me something I can agree with so that this stops running through my head. Because I really can't be staying up until 2:30 all the time stressing about this.

I'm caught. Caught between the beliefs and values I have held and see a lot of truth and logic in (and am grieved to see have been used as weapons to hurt a lot of people) and my desire to conform to everyone's values, because I don't want to be alone. I don't believe we were supposed to be alone in our values and beliefs, but I think I am.

And if you really know me, you know that it is making me sick to be typing this out because I feel like I'm disagreeing with everyone simply by thinking these things let alone sharing them. But it is 2:30 and I have been tossing these thoughts through my head for months...so if you really know me you won't be mad at me for saying all these things I've been saying.