We all have the desire to be known and to know others. There are so many hindering factors to this though. When I think of community this means being with people I care about and care about me. There can be this fantasy that when we find a group of people that we commit to, that we will all become perfect and it will be something magical.
As difficult as the commitment to marriage is, the commitment to a community of people is even more difficult because we can bolt without any problems. The only thing that ties us together is relationships. If a community is based on geographic location we can move, or we can dodge any forms of communication. We can basically back out of community any time we would like.
It is easy to be in community with other people when things are going well, when we all agree, when people's dogs don't bark all night. This is when we want and enjoy being with other people. But when things difficult, when we are annoyed then we jet.
A couple of weeks ago I was literally hit what it looks like to live in community with others. We had a storm suddenly blow through our region. At about 7 am it got very dark, windy and we watched out our deck as we got the rain we needed that we had been sorely lacking. About 8 am it was all done and I went to walk out my front door and looked out and saw trash strewn everywhere. It had been trash day and most of the neighbors had put their trash out before they left for work. Somehow our house and two neighbors next to me had all the trash from across the street in our front yards.
I had to leave for a meeting and didn't do anything about it until I got home later in the afternoon. When I got home the trash was still everywhere. So Jill and I retrieved the 6 or so trash recepticles and returned them to where we thought they went. We picked up our yard and the assisted our neighbors as we picked up all sorts of trash.
As I have thought back on that day I have begun to see this as a metaphor to living in community. We get a whole lot of trash in our space. When we really know others we know the good, and we also know the bad. Unfortunately not to many perfect live on this earth and when we are being known and knowing others we see the imperfect side many times.
So what happens when we end up with trash in our yard? Either literally or proverbial? Do we build a fence and to try and keep the trash from coming in our space and try to get it to go somewhere else? Or do we realize that this just comes with the territory and not only clean up the garbage that comes in our yard but also go to our neighbors and help them also?
No comments:
Post a Comment