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.