community.

 {photo via Bippity Boppity Boo}

Last Sunday, as lunch was dying down, we sat around the table, and we talked about community. 

And we wondered: How do you stop talking about it and start living it? 

Community has become this buzzword in Christian circles and maybe outside them; there are books and blogs and sermons devoted to this idea of living together in harmony, of creating an atmosphere where people mix and mingle and live and serve one another authentically. And we love talking about it, love analyzing it, love cutting it open and apart, and then we just leave it on the table, never really doing anything with it. 

I’m not saying I want to start some compound where I live within walking distance of all the people I love. I’m not advocating homeschooling over public-schooling or some imaginary safe-world over the real one. 

But I am wondering why I can’t — or don’t — invite my friends and neighbors over for supper. I’m wondering why the people I love are spread out over a town that’s not even that very big, resulting in occasional, pre-scheduled gatherings. I’m wondering why everyone’s just so darn busy all the time. 

I’m wondering what a simple life really looks like, what authentic community looks like, and I’m wondering: Do we really want it? 

Just like anything else worth having, I’m assuming community takes work. And I think it’s easier to sit around and moan and groan about it, about how we’re missing it, about how we’re just not fitting, not getting it. It’s easier to talk about it than to do it. 

In the past week, I’ve had four separate conversations with friends — all 20-somethings, some with children, some without, some married, some not — and we’re all in agreement: Something is missing. One friend thinks the solution might be a prayer group, a Bible study with an emphasis on confession and fellowship. Another thinks we need to move closer together, to share neighborhoods and homes with each other. Another references her time in Italy as inspiration for what she wants now. One brave friend acknowledges something is missing, but also acknowledges: She doesn’t have time or effort or energy to go about fixing the problem. 

I want community. When Jordan and I have a crockpot full of soup on the stove, I want to be able to call up our friends and say, “Have you eaten yet? We have extra!” I want intense, meat-y Bible study. I want a handful of people (I have always been a handful-of-people kind of person, not a multitudes kind of person) who I can trust and confide in, and admittedly: I’d like those people to be close. I’d like them to be here, not miles away, unable to eat my food or share my couch. I want friends who have babies and friends who don’t. I want single friends and married friends. I want friends who are different from me, but deep down, I want us to be the same. 

The answer to all of this is eluding me. I cannot find it. I do not know, and I do not like not knowing. 

So I’m focusing on what I do know. 

I know that I have three or four good friends, excellent friends, who I can send prayer requests to and confide in via email. 

I know that with some advance planning, I can have dinners and lunches and nights spent talking on the couch with those I love who live right here. 

I know that for me, community includes family, and that is a blessing. 

I know that I have girls in a book club I love, know that there are couples like me who are at least trying to make community happen, even in the tiniest of ways. 

Here is the thing: I am content. This life is good, and despite a year that has been full of changes for a lot of our friends (moving and pregnancies and life), we still have a community. We have people who love us and friends who mean something to us. Our life is full. 

I am content, but I don’t want to be neutral. I don’t want to be apathetic or careless with community. I want to be reaching for more, for better, for the things we dream about at the dinner table but forget about as the hours pass. 

As this year draws to a close, I’m going to be thinking on these things. I’m going to be praying about what 2012 might hold for us, how community might look if we talked a little less and did a little more. 

In the meantime, I’d love to hear from you. In your homes and in your families and in your towns, do you have community? What does that look like to you? Do your neighbors come over to eat? Do you find community mostly in your church or outside it? Do you have small groups or planned fellowships, or does it just kind of happen? (And if that’s the case, please: Tell me how.) 

I feel like I haven’t said all I want to on this subject, but it’s a start. I’m hoping you’ll fill in some of the blanks.