The Wet Period

Sitting in a circle there are twenty of us going through M. Scott Peck's Community Building exercise. According to Peck there are stages: Pseudo-community which is pretending we all get along but it's just pretending and being nice. It's what most people do at Church, Government, work or when we run into one another in restaurants. Once you understand its Pseudo or false ... things quickly deteriorate into chaos. We blame one another for being fake and get angry about it. Taking it out on one another we call people names. We condemn them to hell, become self-righteous and dehumanize others. FOX News has perfected the art of chaos. After this you're simply spent and got no more to give. Too tired to be angry anymore, we lapse into not giving a shit. Peck calls this stage Emptiness. You let it all out ... and then you're just sitting there as you. And you're sitting beside others who are spent too from calling each other Sons-of-Bitches ... that you begin to see others as they really are. This occurs at the same time they are finally seeing you as you really are. Then ... Community is achieved. We were in south Georgia at a retreat center near Valdosta and very clearly in the Chaos stage. A Rabbi was screaming at a woman calling her a Son-of-a-Bitch. Looking at my friend Terry on the other side of the room, we both acknowledged the Gender-Bending that would need to occur to make that possible. The woman, not to be outdone by Rabbi in front of an audience, called him a Prick. It all got worse from there. I was called a Prick for writing books before other people got around to writing theirs. Terry was called all manner of evil for working for the Government. Spouses not in love with their Spouses watched one another storm out of the room ... then one would chase the other to reclaim ... Pseudo-Community. I seem to recall a Baptist minister peed his pants. Needing a different kind of release, Terry and I found the Gym and beat the hell out of one another in the most physical and abusive basketball game ever played. We were pretty empty after that ... so we drank ... the alcohol we'd sneaked into retreat center. The next day, the Rabbi got up and apologized to the woman who said she was sorry too. They embraced and cried. She sat down and the Rabbi stood in the center of the circle ... crying. Unlike the day before, he was humble and frail. "I have entered the wet period of my life ... it's the time of tears. They come easily. I used to think that I could change the world but now I know," ... and his voice cracks as he cries ... "the world has changed me." Community is accepting change. Community is the acceptance of one another as we really are. It is fundamental to religion. It is where God lives. Some call it Heaven on earth. Fast forward 25 years ... I changed the world. Then the world changed me. Terry too. And the poor Rabbi struggles for meaning as he nears the end of it all. I don't know happened to the woman though the man who called me a Prick never got around to writing his book. The Spouses who chased one another divorced in bitterness. Terry and I were together last week, in community with Sarah and girls ... and my kids too though none of them were actually here. He and I ended up on the Beloved Back Deck talking into the night. "We've become the Rabbi" he later said. "We've entered the wet period ... tears come easy." It is true. Though ... it is in community that I share my tears. There is this Carnival of Friends and we've all cried together. Sarah and I kiss tears from each other. The kids and I have all hugged one another through the wetness. Fran was raised from the dead to cry with me. And God visits the Beloved Back Deck often. Thank you Terry. For reminding me. For friendship. For community.