Friday, February 15, 2013

A community sized hole

So many thoughts about community. so many questions, but one recently answered.  This whole life I have been craving love, when I was little, my mom said I even hugged a guy in the grocery store. I had boyfriends too early, and too many, and I tried to find a love that would last. I ended up with a love that found me, instead.  God has, for sure, been along on the whole trip.  Even in the grocery store, even when I was hurt by love, and people I loved. Even when I threw love away.  Grown up me, never hugged strangers anymore, and tried having more of a relationship with my parents, with other friends from our church, our community. And this is the part of it all that never makes sense. I have failed. I have picked out people at our church and said, lets be friends, I have tried to make my dad happy, so he will like me more, I have let certain peoples children make a mess of my house, on a regular basis, because I was trying to cultivate community. We are going to be in heaven forever right, lets get to know each other now, why wait.  Lets talk about crazy stuff that doesn't fit in our culture.  Spirits and babies, and God-reflecting nature. I forgave, I forgot, I covered over a multitude.  I pushed away the wanting for a group of people to accept me. I still feel the empty.  The love of my life, the love that found me, that God sent had always been there, and I am so blessed by that.  But the community that I have dreamed of, the closeness I crave, for other types of relationships, has not been fulfilled.  So discouraged by gossip, judgement and Silence.  Programs and obligations, and this is the way we always do things-ness.  "I would ask you guys, but you are always too busy..."  Maybe I am looking in the wrong place. You would think that church and our families were where we find our community. but I even started to wonder if I was wrong. What if a community really is just this weird-artist thing that all the normal people are telling me by their self-insulating behavior, is just for hippies and cults. Thankfully, reading the book of Matthew showed me, no, I am right about community.  Life is supposed to be about loving each other and Jesus was the best at showing this.  I don't have a God sized hole, I have a heart filled with God, that craves a human community. If it takes hugging strangers in the grocery store.

4 comments:

  1. "I don't have a God-sized hole, I have a heart filled with God that craves a human community." This is brilliant. Thanks for sharing! I can totally identify with your words. :)

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  2. Poignant, beautiful, sad, real. Thanks.

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  3. You dear daughter, this is spilling guts, bleeding words. There is so much in it!
    How interesting that we talked about community at the same time.
    Love you!

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  4. "We were made to worship, and our souls will not tolerate a vacuum. A sensitive being suffers without an object of pursuit, without something to interest his mind and emotions." Dee Brestin -Idol Lies.

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