I'm discovering in our season of life that having a toddler, who just happens to be an extrovert opens the door to endless possibilities.
Our Myka loves people and she loves for her people to feel connected.
I become the recipient of that when I pick her up at daycare and she needs to introduce me to her friends and their mommies and daddies.
On our family walks in the community nearly every adult we meet must be mommy or daddy's friend. It's an interesting perspective to have, but not exactly new.
There are no strangers here;
Only friends you haven't yet met.
~William Butler Yeats~
It seems like a lot of the past few years for me have been a search for community.
The places I thought I once belonged no longer have space for me.
The relationships I once held dear did not survive change.
And so my community was turned upside down and inside out and my life started to feel a little like Alice in Through the Looking Glass.
Through my daughter I am starting to realize how narrow my view of community had become.
When I worked as a nurse in downtown Indianapolis, I had diverse friendships. I regularly interacted and shared life with people, who were different from me.
They were different races and cultures.
They had different political and social viewpoints.
My community was diverse and I learned and grew as I shared life with people much different.
Then circumstances changed and I instead found myself for about a year and a half surrounded with people who saw the world in a very similar fashion.
On the backside of that I see the danger that is present in that scenario.
I became stale, unchallenged.
It was not necessary to think too far outside of the box I was in and was even discouraged at times if I tried to go too far outside of what was familiar.
In my safe group of like minded people, I became comfortable.
Then something happened and I no longer fit in.
I still am not entirely sure what happened that caused a break.
Maybe it was job loss, maybe it was becoming disillusioned.
What ever it was, close relationships gradually disappeared and I had to search for what was important in my life.
After my second daughter, Eden, was born, I remember distinctly recognizing that I had begun to once more find myself challenged by relationships with people who were not like me and in doing that I once more found true community.
When we look for community in only like minded people, we run a risk.
We risk losing our souls for the sake of belonging to a particular group. We will eventually sacrifice what holds value to us to remain a part of this group. We create restricted community, you only "fit" if you "fit" our idea of community. At the end of the day it doesn't matter how much you say you want to engage others, your choices show by the blend of the community with which you identify.
The last six weeks of school have had me digging in deeply to the book of Acts. Examining the first church and the leaders in that movement have had me soul-searching. I suppose in some ways it made me open to the lessons God was using my nearly three year old, Myka to teach me. The first church without the Gentiles was at risk. If they only remained a community of Jewish believers, they ran the risk of traditional Jewish culture distorting the message of Christ. So God moved the leaders of this fledging group to reach out to the Gentiles. Peter, Paul and even James end up advocating for the Gentiles to be included. They begin to challenge the "Jewish way" of doing things and instead focusing on the message that God desires to spread to the ends of the earth. This creates a radical change in the first church and broadens the sense of community beyond the boundaries of the Jewish culture.
When we live in community the way God intends, it will look messy. We will be surrounded by people who see the world differently. We will be challenged by people from different cultures and with different customs. We will find people who are on different sides regarding various political and social issues. We might find our beliefs challenged.
That is a good thing!
When we allow it community will grow us and if we let it, community might even become family.
