We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
People who I talk with that say they have found something of true community, and then have to leave it for one reason or another, long for it more and more as the years go by. Why does true community seem to carry so much weight for people nowadays?
2 comments:
I love this question, Greg. What I first noticed in your question is a desire for community based upon past tense experiences. It is very interesting that people are "longing for it more as the years go by." I would be interested in how nostalgia and memory fit into the idea of community and inclusivity. As far as true community carrying weight, I would wager that the longing for home carries within it some heaviness, especially in an age of postmodern rootlessness, at a time where we are wealthy enough to search and travel, experience momentary moments of rich community, but find it difficult to stay with the pain and vulnerablity that true, long-term community, might actually involve. What do you think?
Erin,
Thanks. These are excellent observations and thoughts.
No doubt nostalgia, memory, and imagination play a significant role in the lives of those longing for a a renewing of a past experience with others that was meaningful and enriching.
One postmodern tendency results, as you rightly wager, in a sense of wandering and alienation, but I think many of the people I talk with are seeking to find a place to be - to dwell with God and others, even if at times this means it's tough going. There is indeed, however, in some folks a form of idealism - an idea that community is made up of peace and harmony where all is supposed to go well. And when it doesn't, they bail out because a lack of commitment to work through the pain or to have to face vulnerability issues of their own.
But for the majority that I have contact with there seems to be a realism, or at least a developing willingness to trust and commit after experiencing life in community for a time, irrespective of whether or not it all goes well.
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