If community begins with belonging and belonging is being deeply known, then any group or organization that doesn't practice both listening and acceptance cannot provide community. You can not belong to a community that doesn't want to know you or that doesn't want to accept you once they've gotten to know you.
I've felt a profound loss of community recently from my church that I've attended my entire life. Literally telling part of my family they are no longer invited to participate as they once were is about as un-accepting as you can get. And providing no way to present my concerns on the topic to anyone with authority to make decisions is an obvious failure in the listening category.
I always struggle to disentangle all the competing variables in my life that disrupt community. Some changes are all about me: I've gotten older and changed over time, my kids are in high school and busier than ever, I keep moving and changing jobs. Some changes have nothing to do with me: pandemics, political insanity, cultural changes, etc. Did I leave the community, or did it leave me?
Communities are one-to-many relationships, as opposed to one-to-one relationships. I'd say I have two such relationships left, though neither community is very large. The first is my run club–two dozen or so of us that sweat and suffer together. The second is my family. The four of us are rarely in the same place at the same time anymore, but we listen and we accept. (Or at least we try to!) As much as I'd like to have more community, it's unclear to me where I would find the time and energy to invest in one right now.
Clark, your words carry so much weight because you can feel the loss and disorientation around them. Totally agree that you can't have a true community without listening and acceptance. One without the other is just a club with rules, not a refuge with people.
Your question about the community leaving you, I totally felt that the most. I've sat with that question. While I know our stories differ, the ache overlaps. I read the book Second Class Saints by Matthew Harris, and it challenged how I was taught to view a historical aspect of my church, where it was explained as a 1978 "revelation" that just descended from heaven one day. The real story is messier and more human filled with courageous people staying, speaking, and risking disappointment again and again to bring about change.
Of course, it's easier to hold that view from my place of privilege. My family isn't the one being shut out. But reading how a priesthood ban was entangled with fears around interracial marriage brought up personal connections I hadn't expected. It made me reflect on how much resistance to change is about preserving artificial comfort, and definitely not divine truth.
I wish I had a tidy answer, especially for myself! Some Sundays, I feel a little like our crumpled rainbow ally magnet—Dom found it once tossed in the church garbage. I pressed it back onto our car, bent and all, but it felt like the only thing I could do was to say to nobody, "we're still here."
Your run club and your family are hard-won, real community. The kind that listens, accpets, and shows up. That's sacred.
If community begins with belonging and belonging is being deeply known, then any group or organization that doesn't practice both listening and acceptance cannot provide community. You can not belong to a community that doesn't want to know you or that doesn't want to accept you once they've gotten to know you.
I've felt a profound loss of community recently from my church that I've attended my entire life. Literally telling part of my family they are no longer invited to participate as they once were is about as un-accepting as you can get. And providing no way to present my concerns on the topic to anyone with authority to make decisions is an obvious failure in the listening category.
I always struggle to disentangle all the competing variables in my life that disrupt community. Some changes are all about me: I've gotten older and changed over time, my kids are in high school and busier than ever, I keep moving and changing jobs. Some changes have nothing to do with me: pandemics, political insanity, cultural changes, etc. Did I leave the community, or did it leave me?
Communities are one-to-many relationships, as opposed to one-to-one relationships. I'd say I have two such relationships left, though neither community is very large. The first is my run club–two dozen or so of us that sweat and suffer together. The second is my family. The four of us are rarely in the same place at the same time anymore, but we listen and we accept. (Or at least we try to!) As much as I'd like to have more community, it's unclear to me where I would find the time and energy to invest in one right now.
Clark, your words carry so much weight because you can feel the loss and disorientation around them. Totally agree that you can't have a true community without listening and acceptance. One without the other is just a club with rules, not a refuge with people.
Your question about the community leaving you, I totally felt that the most. I've sat with that question. While I know our stories differ, the ache overlaps. I read the book Second Class Saints by Matthew Harris, and it challenged how I was taught to view a historical aspect of my church, where it was explained as a 1978 "revelation" that just descended from heaven one day. The real story is messier and more human filled with courageous people staying, speaking, and risking disappointment again and again to bring about change.
Of course, it's easier to hold that view from my place of privilege. My family isn't the one being shut out. But reading how a priesthood ban was entangled with fears around interracial marriage brought up personal connections I hadn't expected. It made me reflect on how much resistance to change is about preserving artificial comfort, and definitely not divine truth.
I wish I had a tidy answer, especially for myself! Some Sundays, I feel a little like our crumpled rainbow ally magnet—Dom found it once tossed in the church garbage. I pressed it back onto our car, bent and all, but it felt like the only thing I could do was to say to nobody, "we're still here."
Your run club and your family are hard-won, real community. The kind that listens, accpets, and shows up. That's sacred.