Don Miller continues to offer some great insights in, Blue Like Jazz. A sure recluse, Don moved into “Graceland” – the name of the house he shared with some guys while living in Portland. As he reflected on what it meant to learn to live with people, he wrote,
Living in community made me realize one of my faults: I was addicted to myself. all I thought about was myself. The only thing I really cared about was myself. I had very little concept of love, altruism, or sacrifice. I discovered that my mind is like a radio that picks up only one station, the one that plays me: K-DON, all don, all the time. (p.181)
He goes on,
“The most difficult life I have ever contended with is this: Life is a story about me.” (p.182)
And on,
“I hear addicts talk about the shakes and panic attacks and the highs and lows of rsisiting their habit, and to some degree I understand them because I have had habits of my own, but no drug is so powerful as the drug of self. No rut in the mind is so deep as the one that says I am the world, the world belongs to me, all people are characters in my play. There is no addiction so powerful as self-addiction.” (p.182)
We certainly love isolation. We often long to be “alone” from people. Yet, people constitute much of the transforming work of the Spirit of God in our lives. Would we want to miss that?
