It's not that i haven't tried when and how I can. I've been active part of my church, volunteered at my kids' schools, signed up when I can to help out with community events. I go often to the library, visit the same local parks, walk regularly to the store in my neighborhood and contribute posts to all of the above social media posts. So why is this so hard?
I think there are lots of reasons. My kids have some extra needs and parenting them takes more energy. They also are adversive to situations that have lots of people. When they were little, they got very upset if I talked to adults for any amount of time.
Also, for most of the past decade I worked obscene hours often waking at 4 to finish work by pickup so I could spend afternoons with the kids. To survive, I had to put things I loved on the chopping block and community was one of the things that went.
Since 2020, I've had more bandwidth. I traded full time work for a baby (which is roughly an equal trade) but I've found small spaces to re-engage with the various communities I belong to. It's still a long way from the level of commitment that is required to really "belong" in the same way that I did before I had kids.
I have long felt grief about this desire to have a deeper connection with community... with church, at school. A desire to have close friends to share parenthood with. Kids that know my house and houses that know my kids.
But today, my perspective changed a little. Perhaps there is more than one right way to be in community.
I've always thought of community as a group that belong to a specific school or church that live life together. Share meals, celebrate holidays, hold events. Members of the community look out for each other, organizing meal trains when someone gets sick. For me, community involved a whole lot of dragging chairs around and making dishes to share and gathering in kitchens with retired ladies to rinse off spoons.
That idealized sense of community is unobtainable for me in this season. Not because I'm a mother - lots of mothers are the backbone of communities. It's because I'm a mother to the particular children that I am a mother to. There just isn't time for spoon washing just yet.
I have been creeping closer. My church has an annual women's retreat and in 2018 or so, I finally carved out a way to take a single Saturday off so that I could partially attend. It's a beautiful retreat and there's something magical that happens, for a few hours I feel like I belong. I find myself in community.
At the beginning of the school year, a woman at my kids school organized a moms group to help moms of the school connect and form better community. It happened to be scheduled for a spot that often is open in my schedule and wanting to help the group get going, I came regularly. Some days I felt like I connected, a little.... some days I felt how big the gap was between my big, chaotic, autism dominated household and what other moms shared about their homes. But, community takes time I would remind myself. So, even when I felt on the edge, I kept going.
Today, the group got going on a discussion that went deeper than usual. There were tears. It, for a moment, felt like the retreat. Everyone belonged. Everyone mattered.
I've been pondering this all day and holding in my heart what God might speak about community. And I think I heard something new.... we are intended to live out our faith in community. I've always believed this which is why I've struggled so much with this aspect of life. Community keeps you balanced. Challenges you when you need challenging. Lifts you up when life gets to heavy. Prays with and for you. Refocuses your eyes on faith when you need it. Community is an essential part of the Christian walk. But what if you can't seem to connect to a community? What if you are perpetually an outsider?
What if faith community is not a single group of people at a church or a school but rather any gathering of the faithful. Maybe women's retreat or the moms group are small moments of community in a season that doesn't allow me to put in the effort to be in community the way I aspire. Maybe anytime I gather and share faith with others is being part of the community of Christ. Maybe community is a gift like grace. We don't have to "belong" or "put in our dues" to access the community of believers. We just have to be open and show up when we can.
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