Stay Curious by Stephanie Williams O'Brien

Author:Stephanie Williams O'Brien [O’Brien, Stephanie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-5064-4957-9
Publisher: Fortress Press
Published: 2019-07-29T16:00:00+00:00

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James H. Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2011), loc. 3059 of 4753, Kindle. ↵

From an interview quoted in Ian Punnett, How to Pray When You’re Pissed at God (New York: Harmony, 2013), 10. ↵

Jonathan Martin, How to Survive a Shipwreck: Help Is on the Way and Love Is Already Here (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016), 195. ↵

12

The Utopian Slope

Expectation is the root of all heartache.

—Anonymous

Nothing convinces you of the reality that all humans are broken and in need of grace than living with a group of people in a small space. Over a period of fifteen years, I was roommates or housemates with thirty-nine different people. I married my husband in my midthirties, which brought the total of different humans I had lived in close proximity with to forty. Each one of these beautifully complex people has shown me what brokenness looks like. I saw their brokenness up close and personal, and my own brokenness was revealed to me—I am not always an easy person to live with. I have learned so much from every person I have shared space with. In particular, I’ve learned that expectations are at the core of every conflict. We all have expectations for others, for ourselves, and for the experiences we have in life. It’s only a matter of time before one or two—or ten—of those expectations come crashing down as we experience something completely different than we had anticipated.

Pastor Joseph Steinke calls these high expectations a utopian hope. As soon as I heard him use that phrase, I thought about the countless utopian hopes I have had over the years. Living with a group of people in community came to my mind right away! I had bought a house in the city, and six of my friends moved in. That meant there were seven women trying to live in one house with one fridge and only two bathrooms (not to mention the hyper dog). I remember thinking we would live together, pray together, and share what we had, and it would be a wonderful space for community and growth! It’s like we would be living a modern-day experience of the community described in Acts. While that season in my life was wonderful in many ways, it turns out that living with that many women in a small amount of space—with a ton of opinions and all our issues—was really challenging. We learned how to do it well, but it was super-hard work.

Before that, I had utopian hopes about what college would be like, followed by seminary. Neither were what I expected. I had high expectations for what planting a church would be like and how easy it would be for my church to serve others in the neighborhood. I had no room for the idea of difficulty, hardship, or challenge in my utopian hopes for the church. It’s been very difficult to serve a congregation and to serve our city. Nearly every day I wonder if we are doing this well and if all our efforts are making a difference.

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