Community

I really want to live in community with people this year. I love being around people and living by myself sounds like possibly one of the worst things ever. I would love to have a couple of roommates that I could share life with and be there to challenge and encourage each other. I really wanted to live in the apartment complex down the street from my school, where a lot of refugee families live. Every time that I go there, I just love that place and the diversity of the apartment complex. But I don't want to do it alone. I think that I had high hopes of coming back home from Sierra Leone and finding a lot of people that would want to live there, but I haven't. In fact, I have had trouble even finding someone to live with.

Why is community so hard to come by?

Is it because I have an idealistic one-sided picture in my mind?

This summer I was reading the book Irresistible Revolution, and found this quote that really stuck out to me from Dietrich Bonhoeffer. "The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community (even if their intentions are ever so earnest), but the person who loves those around them will create community."

I have heard so many stories of people living in intentional community and seen friends that live that way, and I think that it is really easy to look at that and think that is the only way to live in community.

Do I love my view of what I think community should be, that I am missing community that is right in front of me?

I still do desire to live with girls that are seeking to live in community with one another, and I don't think that desire is a bad thing. We were created to live in community with one another. That is one thing that Sierra Leone has figured out way more then America: how to live in a community. Everything is done in community with one another. I miss that. I miss always having people around to talk with and to share life with.

So I still don't want to live by myself this year, but if that is what it comes to, then maybe that is what the Lord wants for me. Maybe I need to focus on falling more in love with Jesus and time spent with alone with him, could be what I need this year. Or maybe I need to re-think my definition of the word community. I realized even as I was typing this, that I am not sure exactly what my definition of community is. It is simply a word that is thrown around a lot.

So, I don't have any really nice, closing for this entry. Just questions and a lot of thoughts.