Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 84 Plough Quarterly • Summer  merely living together does not necessarily bring us into communion with one another.4 So what is the key to communing with one another? Community as Christ intended it demands, if nothing else, a commitment to care for one another–to be our brother’s and sister’s keeper. Without simple deeds of love, community is not possible. Dr. Paul Brand, who devoted himself to eliminating leprosy, was once working alone in an attic when he came across some boxes of skeletons that had been dug up from a monastery. He remembered a lecture he heard given by anthropologist Margaret Mead, who spent much of her life researching prehistoric peoples. She asked her audience, “What is the earliest sign of civilization? A clay pot? Iron? Tools? Agricul- ture?” No, she claimed, it was a healed leg bone. Brand recalls: She explained that such healings were never found in the remains of competitive, savage societies. There, clues of violence abounded: temples pierced by arrows, skulls crushed by clubs. But the healed femur showed that someone must have cared for the injured person–hunted on his behalf, brought him food, and served him at personal sacrifice. Savage societies could not afford such pity. I found similar evidence of healing in the bones from the churchyard. I later learned that an order of monks had worked among the victims: their concern came to light five hundred years later in the thin lines of healing where infected bone had cracked apart or eroded and then grown back together.5 Community is all about helping each other– caring enough to invest oneself in the “thin lines of healing.” There is no other way to have community. The apostle Paul wrote, “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love” (Gal. 5:6). Words and ideas, forms and structures, can take us only so far. In the end, it’s a matter of whether we will lay down our lives for one another. For Christ’s followers, this is not just a matter of obe- dience but the distinguishing mark of our witness. Jesus says, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34–35). 1. Howard A. Snyder, Liberating the Church: The Ecology of Church and Kingdom (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1983), 113–114. 2. Michael Frost, Incarnate: The Body of Christ in an Age of Disengagement (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2014), 16. 3. Henri J. M. Nouwen, Lifesigns: Intimacy, Fecundity, and Ecstasy in Christian Perspective (New York: Doubleday, 2013), 19. 4. Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation (New York: New Directions Books, 1972), 55. 5. Paul Brand and Philip Yancey, Fearfully and Wonderfully Made (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1980), 68. It’s a matter of whether we will lay down our lives for one another.