Striving for Community

We're always striving for something. That's good. But sometimes we strive so much for that elusive thing that we don't realize the ways we already have it. We let it slip through our lives under appreciated, under engaged.

I got to thinking about this related to community. Why do I fail to appreciate the community I have? A-ha! Maybe because my relationships are so compartmentalized that they don't integrate to the point that they feel like community. Its as if work, church, my kids' school, various friends, relatives, etc. all exist in worlds of their own. The relationships I have in those contexts have boundaries of expectation and commitment that are largely limited to those contexts. Those boundaries can be a hurdle to cross even when it may be appropriate and desirable to do so.

But some of the boundaries are in my mind. I see co-workers, people from church, parents of my kids' friends, etc. when I could expand my thinking to see more holistically. I could be more mindful and appreciative of the relationships I have with these people. I could recognized that these are people with whom there may be potential to expand relationships and community if I (and they) are willing to open windows, doors, maybe eventually even take down walls of the boxes of our lives.

I'm not looking to invade any one's life. That's obnoxious. Nor am I looking for all my compartmentalized relationships to overlap. I think that would be too homogeneous, too stifling. But I would like a lot more integration than I have now.

Maybe a way forward is to continue to say this:

I have community. How did I experience it today?