I wish I lived in a community where I could sit out on my front porch and pick my guitar of an evening and have friends come walking down the street, stop and join me for some human fellowship. I wish I could offer iced tea, lemonade, or a glass of wine and a good discussion could follow: Koinonia.
I wish I had the ability to dig in the dirt with my fellow humans, but alas, the community garden is thirty miles away, so we don't participate.
I wish there were a way to share my table with others and offer hospitality, say compline together before going or separate ways.
I hate hate hate having to drive forty-five minutes to get to Church. I hate the way we are all so isolated. I always greet my neighbors when I'm out walking and I know they recognize me: I"m the one who's lost so much weight and they are all speculating how much and if I'll loose more. I know because people have asked me. But no one knows my name and I don't know anyone's name and there's a generation gap and no one reaches out. Our neighborhood is not a community. I doubt that it has been since the television was invented.
Meanwhile I have a different vision of life than most, and so I sit here at my stupid computer, longing for Koinonia, when the reality is, it just ain't to be found...
I wish I had the ability to dig in the dirt with my fellow humans, but alas, the community garden is thirty miles away, so we don't participate.
I wish there were a way to share my table with others and offer hospitality, say compline together before going or separate ways.
I hate hate hate having to drive forty-five minutes to get to Church. I hate the way we are all so isolated. I always greet my neighbors when I'm out walking and I know they recognize me: I"m the one who's lost so much weight and they are all speculating how much and if I'll loose more. I know because people have asked me. But no one knows my name and I don't know anyone's name and there's a generation gap and no one reaches out. Our neighborhood is not a community. I doubt that it has been since the television was invented.
Meanwhile I have a different vision of life than most, and so I sit here at my stupid computer, longing for Koinonia, when the reality is, it just ain't to be found...
Comments
Thank you again, your songs bring tears to my eyes, your lyrics are AMAZING.
We sat in our backyard just last night talking about how we've lived here for 3 years and barely know the neighbors names. I marvel at the fact that I hardly ever hear children running around the neighborhood as when I grew up. That bothers me more than anything. Is it because it's not safe? I don't let my kids run around the neighborhood, but they are in the backyard all the time and I wince whenever they get too loud, I know the neighbors won't miss us with all the noise they create. But I do think Tabitha hit the nail on the head...the TV is what is empyting the neighborhood of the children and the need/desire for community. We commune around the TV instead.
Yes, you can try and create community, andperhaps you should, but you also learn very quickly that your neighbors will likely hold quite different values.
Its funny because we are less and less physically dependent on one another these days...I'm sure you all have noticed when something "big" happens (bad storm, fire...whatever) your neighbors tend to break out in a spontaneous display of community (even if half-hearted), and then once the "danger" subsides we all return to our regularly scheduled isolation.
In some rural communities I suspect you see more common examples of community being displayed in direct proportion to these two factors: common values and how much people need each other.
Of course, in our isolationism we have come to find that we need each other EMOTIONALLY as well, but it precisely HERE where our diverse values cause us conflict.
Sure, I'd love to have a block party...but not if the neighbor is providing entertainment by letting their 7 and 8 year olds watch the entire first season of "Desperate Houswives." Or if my kids would be the butt of jokes for believing that the Body and Blood of Christ is in fact the Body and Blood of Christ. Or if one of the neighbors habitually uses our Lord's name as a cuss word. Or if one of the neighbors is an evangelical bent on converting the idolatrous Orthodox neighbors.
I think you get my point. It is one thing to reach out and be friends...but REAL community? I doubt it. I firmly believe that the extent to which it can happen is based on the two factors I noted before.
Of course, if you don't even KNOW what your neighbors' values are...well they take Red's advice. Count me as being at least somewhat culpable on that point.