The Community in Between
Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.
I’ll never stop thinking about Lord of the Rings. Sadly, I’m much more captivated by the visual story as told by the New Zealand kiwis in the early 00s than by the Oxford professor’s actual narrative written in the 50s. As a writer, it’s kind of embarrassing to admit. Truly. I should love his distinct prose and description style, his insistence at developing the story at his own rate, splitting up the narrative without intercutting it, and, SPOILER ALERT, sacking The Shire when everyone thought all was well because they had already destroyed the ring.
Alas, there may yet be time for me to repent of my unliterary ways. Especially if a few of my roommates have anything to say about it. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
In the film The Two Towers, one scene in particular has always stood out to me. A moment my dad pointed out to me and so what I paid extra attention to since. Merry and Pippin, the two itty bitty hobbits traversing through Fangorn Forest, are intercepted by a then unknown friend or foe gigantic walking tree. Later revealed to be an ent named Treebeard. He is rather irritated at the two halflings, mainly because to his eyes they do not look like halflings at all. They are the same size and outline as orcs. Orcs which had chopped away at his friends, chopped away at his home, chopped away at his very essence.
Protesting his claim, Pippin remarks, rather honestly, “and whose side are you on?”
Treebeard, amused and yet still annoyed, replies, “Side? I am on nobody’s side. Because nobody is on my side, little orc. Nobody cares for the woods anymore…”
I understand what Treebeard is saying. Sure, I am not a large walking tree, but his insight is more universal than a first listen might reveal.
And perhaps reveals why so many people continue to persist in spiritual homelessness, stuck trying to find communities of similar people in between.
I’ve always been a relational and social drifter. Well, basically after middle school since my twenty-somethings. By drifter I mean I’ve found friends, brothers, sisters, and kindred spirits in the margins of already existing social groups. I’ve never quite found belonging in established institutions. From the “nerdy clique” in high school, to the scenester, skinny jean wearing, screamo band tee crowd, to the perpetually outdoors and/or climbing REI enthusiasts, to the preppy, hipster Christian crowd I’ve recently spent much time with, I’ve never quite fit. At least, from the outside looking in perspective. This I find to be intentional on my part, but also unintentional as well. Truth be told, if I was to be slotted into a group based on a list of my total interests, I would, without a shadow of a doubt, be lumped into the nerd crowd. The “playing DnD every weekend, attending every Marvel midnight premiere while also critiquing the lack of canonical authenticity” demographic. But I’m also really not. I’m much more complex than that. I’m a diehard NBA fan (I MISS YOU SO MUCH), I love researching about ancient religious mystics of varying religions, and I love learning about human personality, in particular, the cult that will never die known as the Enneagram. And yet, my social needs are deeper than a desire to commiserate on shared interest, or to tear down other ideological factions through a groupthink style lambast from fellow enlightened peers.
And I’m actually certain everyone is built this way.
We are wired to connect. We are built for authenticity and vulnerability. We are instilled with a need to be known, truly and richly, by those around us. Not through what we like or dislike, not through what we think or don’t think, not through what we feel or don’t feel.
We need to be known and admired and liked and loved for who we are. We need communities built not by shared likes. Not by shared political opinions. Not by shared religious conformity.
We need communities built on an agreed and shared humanity.
It was the first day of community group. Version 3.0 I might add for myself in a span of two years. Spending time in a major metropolitan area leads to a lot of creation, recreation, and dissolving of groups, sometimes all happening in mere months. A sad but honest reality. Alas, though my naive belief in a social group on par with the humor of Friends, the comraradie of New Girl, and the insane but charming scenarios of The Office was gone. My hunger for a group that would understand all my pop culture references, a la every scene of the criminally underrated Community, was thankfully replaced. Transmuted to a deeper and better desire to see people regularly, genuinely, and lovingly.
He was the cool kid. The quintessential every other person in this setting pales in “hmm, interesting” comparison. Tons of tattoos, tons of quality insight, and just a dash of mysterious and intentional withdrawing after profound wisdom bombs. Dammit, I begrudgingly admitted to myself. He stole my intriguing, extra “woke,” stumping everyone else at how “wise and spiritual and different” I was cred.
Or so I thought. Because then he started talking about NBA basketball… And so maybe I could like this “cooler than me” dude.
Time rewind.
I was at a bar. As you do in the haven of alcoholics anonymous they call Portland. Four dudes, one particularly rambunctious and loud and annoying and somehow charming, two brothers, one I knew well and one I knew only on a first name basis. In between the threshold of mildly buzzed and “ooo, let’s have a good time” pre-drunk, the radio came on. Iron Maiden, “The Trooper.” Cue the devil horns. Cue the deep and rich rebel angst. Cue the last song I listened to post high school graduation. Cue a spectacular imaginary guitar. The other brother, the brother I knew mainly from first name basis alone, also playing imaginary guitar. Interest in acquaintance-ship spiked. Interest in friendship was later confirmed after the radio suddenly stopped, relocating to the auditory blandness of a Taylor Swift, and our shared fuming anger at the bartender for dropping the wonderful metal song before it got to that sweet, shredding outro.
Walking back to our cars (after a bit of water and a lot of junk food), and somehow the word Halo was said. Nah, not the Beyonce “Halo” (good song though). No, the Halo with the green Master-chief and the purple-y aliens. The Halo with the “duh duh duh duh duh, duh duh duh duh duh, duh duh duh duh duh, duh duh duh duh duh, duh na na.” The Halo that helped me through teenage depression.
The Halo that started (but was never the foundation of) a quality friendship.
I can scan back and see all the best friendships, romantic relationships, work colleagues, and anything in between was started with something shared, often silly and innocuous and random, but was never, in fact, the foundation.
I have so many close friends that are so different than me. Those friends are also so much like me. It’s beautiful what can happen when two people help each other become who they really are merely by being in each other’s presence. With time, with effort, and with a few roadblocks, you learn how marvelously God made them. So too, how marvelous He made you by acquiring the admiration and interest of someone so wonderful.
Yet, what of communities in between? So many of us have unique and specifically live giving friendships. Connections that persist on an one-on-one basis which bring clarity, comfort, and courage. For this we thank God, we thank those friends, we thank even ourselves for continuing to be good friends.
But communities are built on shared values. Shared rituals. Shared ideologies and beliefs and prejudices and blind-spots. How can we, then, establish communities based on something else? Something deeper? Something more human?
Family is simply another word for gatherings of weirdos, dorks, “normies,” jocks, nerds, successful entrepreneurs and struggling bartends that all agree to be a part of the same group and to fulfill the same function. We definitely believe in family as far as biology, as far as a mom and pop and 2.1 kids and a dog (maybe a cat) and a nice but not too nice house. This we believe in principle, and even if we are crushing it in the healthy functional family life department or if we never, ever want to see a member of our biological nuclear group again, we agree, to an extent, that family should exist to be a place of some kind of belonging.
But so many of us are so lonely. According to a study from Cigna, nearly half of Americans report sometimes or always feeling alone (46 percent) or left out (47 percent). Only around half of Americans (53 percent) have meaningful in-person social interactions, such as having an extended conversation with a friend or spending quality time with family, on a daily basis. Generation Z (adults ages 18-22) is the loneliest generation and claims to be in worse health than older generations. In a different study, hauntingly, one 2015 analysis, which pooled data from 70 studies following 3.4 million people over seven years, found that lonely individuals had a 26% higher risk of dying.
Now, to be fair, there is a distinction between a friendship of two and a gathering of three or more. It’s easier to go deep with a buddy than with a group, easier to talk about what’s really going on in your life when you see the patient and caring eyes of one person than the potential ambiguity in the eyes of many. Yet while we need quality one-one-one connections to quell feelings of loneliness (not just in a romantic partner manner either; successful romance is icing on a cake and not the socializing “cake” itself), we also need to feel rooted and grounded in the place we live with the people we live with.
For Christians, for secular humanists, for grungey punks, for indie kids, for basketball fans, for football fans, these labels we attribute to ourselves are valuable. Important in sharing time and joy and excitement and awe in a world filled with wonder and newness and variance. But my actual neighbors, actual roommates, actual coworkers, actual baristas I see every day (or did anyway, freaking COVID-19) are a part of my family too. They contribute or confound my sense of belonging. And I am an agent of my own belonging as well. We all are.
Paul says to make the most of all opportunities, espousing a message of good-will, peace, kindness, and love to all who cross your path as a mandate for someone who follows Christ. Growing up, however, making the most of opportunity was about handing out fallacious, fear-mongering pamphlets, yelling at godless liberals, or shaming abortion clinic workers.
These things just didn’t smell like Christ then. And they still don’t.
For me, community is an evolutionary word. Where more than two exist in a space (which, again, damn you Corona) there lies community. There lies a chance for love. A chance for peace. A chance for hope. But, most powerfully when three or more are gathered, a chance to belong.
I think I’ve always struggled with belonging so that I can be a conduit of belonging in spaces where others struggle to belong. My ask, therefore, is this; where we see others lacking belonging, let us act in ways which foster belonging. See where we are similar, even if it be only two or three things, rather than the eight or nine things where we differ. Offer insight and perspective with kind compassion and informed detachment. Dare to smile (but don’t be weird about it). Take risk in being perceived as uncool, unfunny, uncharming to others you perceive don’t quite fit in the present gathering.
Yet most of all, be gracious to everyone, especially when you do notice someone is an outsider in your setting. Jesus will remember your efforts and bless you for them. So too, will the outsiders, who, though not knowing the right words, the right references, or the right beliefs that your friends know, will recognize you for your kindness and will treasure your good will in their heart.
This is what we need more of in community. Not shared opinions or perspectives or biases. Not shared interests or sports teams or film directors or obscure singer-songwriters.
Rather, spaces for those stuck in between, hungering and longing and yearning for love, grace, hope, and, most of all in groups of three or more, belonging.
Rumi said it well:
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about.