Community

A few days ago on Friday evening I met Lisa for dinner at Amigo's.

On Monday I met Alison and Julia for brunch.  That same evening I met Eric at Earl's for a beer.

And then tonight Sanjit arrived - all the way from Vancouver!  We walked across the Broadway bridge to the Yard and Flagon Pub for dinner.

Early next week I'll be going on a boat cruise along the Saskatchewan river with my new coworkers.

 

I'm finding it so difficult to get to know people nowadays.  Mom was right when she advised me years ago not to take friendships (and relationships) for granted.  I have her words etched in my mind: "As you get older it gets more and more difficult to meet people."  Prophetic words...

The increase in social interaction with others this past week has left me full of gratitude.  I know what it feels like to be alone and with very few options - sometimes none - to engage with others, and to have a week like this, full of stimulation, laughter, conversation, and food, cannot but bring hope into a barren situation.  I pray that it will continue this way.  Genesis 1 and 2 make more sense than ever before: we're not meant to be alone.  God made us social beings.  It's in relating to others that we become fully human.

But while I'm thankful for this past week of fellowship, I can't help also feeling slightly disconcerted at the continuing possibility (even probability) of social isolation, at least in the short term.  None of the people listed above know each other, and it's unlikely that they will even meet each other.  I just don't know enough people here to make genuine community possible.  And the real tragedy in this conversation about community is that the organism best equipped to foster true humanity, the church, is just so pathetic in actually achieving it.  What a cruel irony.  What disappointment.  I doubt there's a more inadequate and hopeless place for community than in the church.

 

In my life I can think of only two periods where I felt true community.  One was when I was a young 8-or-so year old boy, back in Paraguay, growing up with the likes of Uwe, Arnold, Claudio, Viola, Janine, and others.  I think that was possibly the only time in my life that I was truly human.

More recently, almost 30 years after my childhood experiences, my soccerino friends in Vancouver came close to giving me the same acceptance that I received as a young boy.  What made this group of souls so special was that we did the best we could not to judge one another; this, in an environment with a variety of worldviews and opinions.

In fact, part of the reason the last 2 years have been by far the most difficult years of my life is because of my inability to feel fully human as an integrated member of a community.  I lost the woman that I love, my best friend.  I moved away from the very community that affirmed my humanity.  I've exiled myself from a place and a people that I love.

I wonder if I will ever experience community to such an extent again.  I pray for it.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a Sinner.