Hidden Community

At our deepest core we are all connected and getting to that base line and trusting it’s really there is one of the keys to understanding reconciliation.

How many of us have longed for community, had group discussions about how and why community is important, read books about community building and built empires on the ideal of community?

We enter into these ideals but because we live in a society that has mass produced, fabricated community, we find our desires wanting. We find communities plagued with secrets, betrayal, unkept promises, clichés, failure, and rejection. So, we continue on, maybe wounded and bitter, and prescribe a new set of books, discussions and ideals about what “community really looks like.” The cycle continues until we are potentially left with a deep skepticism and ultimately isolated.

An underlying story I often hear when I meet kinfolk and why they have moved into an individualistic approach to life, involves failed connections with friends and/or spiritual family during difficult times. Stories of an upbringing in a community that was rigid and controlling or maybe feelings of abandonment from a taunting God that was distant and harsh. I’ve even experienced this failure myself and in the times of deepest dispar have often felt alone.

However, I have had the privilege of experiencing a grace-filled and faithful God who not only is patient and kind but actually already has this community built. Once I recognized that there was a baseline of connectivity that we all share, all created things, ancient passages about knitting together of the body and when one falls we all fall, when one is honored we are all honored and love your neighbor and most importantly love your enemy all started to  make sense.

And so, I restate, at our deepest core we are all connected and getting to that base line and trusting it’s really there is one of the keys to understanding reconciliation.