Fokke Wouda

CHAPTER 5: DYNAMICS OF COMMON LIFE AND COMMON EUCHARIST 169 In the last years, Brother Alois often quoted this sentence of Isaiah, I will lead the blind on ways they do not know... ... {laughs} ... I think this, we have not, no much other choice than that... than to... ... ... to know, looking towards Christ and the coming kingdom of God and what we know about, about that unity of all, that we pray for, but that for the way, and... we can do our best, like everybody else, but I, I don't think that we can sort of make... a plan....402 Brother TA indicates that vulnerability is needed to overcome misunderstandings and differences in the community. Living and praying together enables the brothers to cultivate this vulnerability, which, in turn, allows the Holy Spirit to restore unity: It has to do with, with that it is so much easier for the Holy Spirit to act when we, indeed, pray together and if we live together, you know {laughs}. But at the same time, it has to do with, with psychology. When you pray together with people… and if you live together, you’ll have to make yourself vulnerable… it’s only when you are vulnerable… that you can advance, in a debate, too, you know, um… if, indeed, you engage in a debate, or engage in a discussion uh, with the idea ‘I should not end up losing…’well, better not do it, you know, I mean uh….403 Trust takes away this fear of losing. TA realizes that Christian unity is not negotiating a compromise that includes winners and losers. Again, this resembles the abundance model Brother TC spoke about (see section 4.4). If the fear of losing can be eliminated, a space opens up in which one can, indeed, be vulnerable. For TA, living and praying together does just this: it enables trust. TC expresses a profound trust in the resurrection that enables him and the community to take risks: I think, that's a little bit of what the experience is here, no? That, that if we, if the Easter mystery... Easter mystery also means... ... that you're not there to defend, no?... an artificial identity. You're there to go towards an authentic identity, no? You’re not just, it's not the ideological identi~ I have everything {laughs}. But it's, if you're there to, to go into the deep mystery, into the deep identity, then you allow something of the undivided church to appear, because Christ is not divided... Christ is not divided. So, something of the unity can appear, the word used in French was affleurer, no? Affleurer, it comes to the 402 TB-2,14. 403 TA-1,44.

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