Tom Ehrich reflects on the viral video of Grand Rapids,
“The Grand Rapids LipDub” (Click HERE to view) and on its depiction of diversity, community, and oneness. A thought provoking commentary:
COMMENTARY: Lessons from Grand Rapids
By Tom Ehrich in Religion News Service
In a week when I was writing about “oneness” — the one thing Jesus
wanted for us, and the one thing we Christians cannot seem to let happen
— this video caught the reality of community.
Community is gritty, not pretty.
Community is an accident of time and space, not a carefully selected
roster of people we like or let in.
Community is everyone, not just “our kind.”
Community is all ages, all races. Community is lovers crying, poets
dreaming.
Life in community is like a tracking shot: people go in and out of
focus, events occur and step aside. No one owns center stage. Life keeps
on happening as the camera’s eye keeps on moving.
And yet, in the camera’s eye, a firefighter is bound to newlyweds,
and they to cheerleaders, and they to the tattooed good old boy, and he
to a woman carrying a dog.