What I Hope for You: Community

I spent this past weekend with friends celebrating a celebratory occasion of one of our group. This group of colleagues has been meeting in some configuration for almost 30 years. What used to be a group brought together to help support young urban pastors has become a group of humans that is deeply rooted in a commitment to sharing our lives with one another, supporting one another through vocational changes, health scares, and family transitions, and, most of all, collaborating in the realization of a just and loving world.

As a segment of us gathered this weekend, I was reminded how important this group has been in keeping me grounded in a world and calling often overwhelmed by tumult and filled with uncertainty — and how much I/we need this during this political and cultural upheaval season. As has been the truth through the generations, when facing power that intends to destroy and divide the body politic and prop up systems of greed and oppression, the most potent form of resistance is to model a better way of being and find strength in the solidarity that is birthed from a community built upon building and nurturing a community of grace, compassion, and love.

I am so grateful that I have these folks in my life, and I hope that you, too, have or will seek out such a group of people, especially if you are struggling to be grounded in the current onslaught of terribleness.

As I reflect on what makes this community so meaningful to me, especially in a day when so many want us to join the cult of individualism, here are a few reasons why and what I hope that you, to,o might experience in community —

may you laugh in ways and frequency that communicate the depth of your belonging

may you be present with one another in words, silence, tears, grief, celebration, understanding, patience, and playfulness

may the stores bring be offered and received in the ways that are intended

may you commit to one another amidst the messiness of life

may the stories you create together be woven together in love and more laughter

may you leave the bullish!t, competition, and facades at the door, and just be you

may you let one another be present as needed and not feel the need to fix the other — unless asked

may you experience loving accountability and genuine grace

may you eat good food, explore new places, dance often, or just sit around and talk all night long.

and, no matter the place or time, may you pick up from where you left off as if you never left one another — because, in the Spirit, you never have.

This is only a partial list of why this particular group of humans has meant so much to me and has kept me grounded all these years. May you, too, have such a group of people in your life to help you thrive during these days, and if not, may they soon be in your future.

Peace be with you,