Rooted in Community

What does it mean to be rooted in community? For me, a few of the markers are… Sharing weekly dinners, prayers, laughter and tears with “our place on Derry,” which has become my family in Harrisburg. Spending time with the Reinfords every Thursday and being part of DJ, Marina and Havah’s growing up. Seeing familiar faces on the street as I walk to work every day, and being greeted as “neighbor” at the corner store. Knowing the people at community meetings, and being recognized as having something to offer.

In a word – relationships. That is what makes me feel most at home and most connected here. Yet it goes even deeper than that. The nature of life brings changes to relationships, as people move on or move away. What does that mean for community? The beauty of it is that community can transcend place, and rootedness is not dependent on particular people.

The people who know our hearts most and with whom we have shared our lives will always be a part of us – that deep bond of community is not easily broken, although it may change. Even as we think about dear members of “our place on Derry” moving away, we like to say that it is “extending” the community (all the way to Belize!) – and although we won’t be able to share kitchen ingredients and everyday life, we will still be part of eachother’s lives.

For me, as I think about my decision to stay long-term, my rootedness to this place is not dependent on the particular people who are here. Four years ago last month, I made the commitment to Harrisburg – and specifically to South Allison Hill – having fallen in love with it during my time at Messiah College. It was “the problems and the hope” that first attracted me – the very real challenges of poverty, blight and crime, yet the persistent efforts of a strong network of community organizations, leaders and ordinary people working hard to make their neighborhood a better place. This is the community that I have chosen in a broader sense, and although the people may change over the years, the commitment that draws us together remains the same.

Thank goodness “community” is not one-dimensional. For even as I hold dear the relationships in my community of people on Derry St – which may well span the globe one day – I sink my roots ever deeper into my community of place here on Allison Hill. This is a testament to “community” as a living and breathing organism, which at its best is flexible enough to grow and change as its members do – as we are simultaneously shaping it and being shaped by it.

Choosing Freedom.

I was struck by my pastor's sermon today, which focused on living a redeemed life. He talked about how we are often so aware of our brokenness and our wounds that we can get stuck in them, and never allow ourselves to move past that to fully embrace the freedom Christ offers. While self-awareness and reflection are certainly crucial as we work through our own particular struggles, I believe there is wisdom in seeing that there must be that next step of finally leaving those things behind in order to truly live in redemption.

For me, my struggle for a long time has been this deep "wound" of feeling alone, abandoned, unloved. Even as I write these words, it sounds like a broken record because I have felt stuck in this place for so long. In recent weeks and months I feel like I have made some progress, slowly but surely learning to appreciate and enjoy time alone, and rediscovering the things that are life-giving for me. In some ways it feels like it is constructing a new way of life - one that still allows lots of space for people but is not so dependent on them, instead rooted in my belovedness and purpose in God.

I don't pretend that I am "fixed" or that this struggle is completely behind me - there is plenty of regression to old patterns that makes forward progress slow, yet forward nonetheless. But I am ready to turn off this broken record, to embrace and claim freedom from that which has trapped me. I realized today that staying in that place has not only caused me a lot of pain, but it has also held me back from being completely who God is calling me to be, and from being able to do the work of building the Kingdom.

This is a wound that I have been comfortable with for way too long, and have allowed to control so much of my life. I don't want it to be my "crutch" any longer - I want to walk (and dance!) in freedom. My pastor's challenge today was to walk out of the doors as a redeemed person - embracing and believing that God changes us, and living as a changed person in light of that. Redemption for me is living in freedom. Freedom borne of knowing and believing that I am deeply and unconditionally loved. Freedom that allows me to love others deeply yet without fear of abandonment. Freedom to care for others with no strings attached. Freedom to invest myself in the things that are important to me without wondering if I will be the only one. Freedom to enjoy the little things in life without needing anyone else to share them with. Freedom to hold the uncertainties of the future with open hands. Freedom to readily see and recognize all of the gifts that are present in my life right now. Freedom to be happy by myself - while still being surrounded by a community of people who care.

So today, I choose freedom - and I pray that I will grow in that as I strive to keep choosing it every single day.

Good Alone.

Curled up in a chair with the sun streaming through the window, for the first time in a while I recognized and appreciated the gift of silence and solitude. As good as I know this is for me, most of the time I expend a lot of energy avoiding being quiet and being alone. I try to fill my life with people, tasks, noise - afraid to pause for fear that I will encounter my deepest insecurities. I have distorted aloneness to symbolize rejection, believing that when I am alone I am not cared for, I am unloved - and thus, I avoid it at all costs.

Yet Henri Nowen speaks truth into this, saying that we are all alone - no one experiences life as we do, and that is the human condition. But we have a choice - we can experience that reality as a wound, as a deep and destructive loneliness, or we can allow God to transform it into a holy and healing solitude. In this solitude, God creates the quiet center within us that we so desperately need, and fills us with Peace and Love. We have to be open to this, though, and create the space in our lives and hearts to allow it to happen. 

I am guilty of not doing this very well. Too often, I try to make myself feel fulfilled by spending time with people, working on projects and tasks, or planning exciting things. While all of these are important, when people aren't around or projects fall through or I tire of planning, I am left feeling empty again. Then my tendency is to go to the other extreme, of escaping the pain through someone else's reality on a TV show or the comfort of sleeping and making it all go away. Neither of these responses leave space for God, though, or invite God to fill my emptiness and make me whole again.

So I cherish mornings like this, when I am not trying to fill my life with busyness or escape it with distractions. I choose to be alone, to be with God, and it is good. That is true solitude. And I am grateful for evenings like last night, when spending a Friday night alone did not cause dread but rather enjoyment - getting in tune with myself and what I want to do, and finding rest, joy and purpose in giving myself a home "spa" treatment, researching vacation spots, cleaning the house and putting my room in order.

As I have more moments like this lately - experiencing aloneness as a space where my best self can emerge, rather than being crippled by my worst insecurities - I have hope that God is not finished with me yet, and that I will continue to learn what it means to be good alone.