living in community (1st in a reflection series)

[as my year of internship at the Stockbridge Boiler Room draws to a close (April 1), it seems good and fitting to me to take some time to reflect in this space on what i've gleaned from this season and to testify to the goodness of a Living God who has directed its course. so the next few entries will centered on this.]

a call of God on your heart can lead you to say yes to things you would never before have dreamed of saying yes to. i remember struggling a lot at the thought of what living in community would be like, even though i really wanted it. i was worried about many aspects of it which now seem insignificant (e.g., sharing a bathroom with several girls, having my dietary preferences affected, not having lovely hardwood floors).

but here's what i've gleaned...

1) community is not the goal, but the vehicle. the goal and destination is Jesus. a good, intentional, christian community will be about much much more than christian people living together to reduces costs. it will be family. it will be people getting into each other's business, spurring one another on to follow Jesus with holistic integrity. there have been times when i think i've been tempted to make community God because i'm so pleased with how lovely it has been to live here with these people. but communities where Jesus is not the center don't work this well, don't impart this much life, and are not really much different that the ill-fated hippie communes of the 70s. we are not hippies.

2) community doesn't work without prayer. i think the glue that holds this community together in all the comings and goings of interns and house guests is that there's this unending rhythm, born of commitment to incarnational presence, of daily prayer. twice a day in the garage out back you can bet there'll be all or some of this household bowed in prayer and raising our voices in worship. it's our anchor. it centers us. it lets us see one another's hearts before the Lord so that we know how better to support one another and so that we're not so quick to annoyance with one another. it's our indirect conflict resolution. it's where we clean up. it's where we go to receive healing through the laying on of hands and intercession. even when i leave, this house will keep on praying. and that is exactly as it ought to be.

3) community doesn't exist for its own pleasure, but to minister to Jesus and neighbors. we love one another well so that the world can see something of the love of Jesus in a breathing, three-dimensional presentation. we serve each other because that's how Jesus said we can serve Him and because it is worship. we create family and unity amongst ourselves so that we can invite in the stranger and the poor to take shelter in our shade, an anomaly in an otherwise chaotic and unkind world. we're blessed to be a blessing.

4) community requires dying. it's true that you can't just go trouncing off to any activity your heart so desires without there being a ripple effect on the whole household. we have to say no to some things we'd prefer to say yes to so that a girl isn't home alone with a demonized hobo or so that someone else isn't single-handedly cleaning up after dinner. we're in this together, which means that the needs of my community have some say in how i order my days. and this isn't unfair nor an impingement upon my individuality and self-direction; it is part of being the people of God, which was always more corporate than individual.

5) community is a smelting furnace. you can think that you are basically a good person who has her stuff pretty well in order until you live in close proximity with people who are not your blood relatives. then all the junk comes to surface. like when a disproportionate irritation at a poorly-loaded dishwasher brings to your attention a deep-seeded perfectionism and superiority. or when all sorts of ugly envy comes to the surface in the form of criticism and squelching of your housemates' pleasure or success. and you have a choice: you can stay with it, determined to be refined by it, to make it right with the other person and to invite Jesus into that space to set you free... or you can get sullen, pout, and reap the consequences (until someone calls you on the carpet about it). a smelting furnace is a good place to be.

6) community prepares me for wifehood and motherhood. this is mostly to do with item #4 above. ;) but also, there are practical pieces of learning to manage or co-manage a household in keeping kitchen inventory, delegating chores, preparing meals for groups of people, keeping the laundry machines going, tending to the yard, sharing a bathroom, and tending to emotional needs. (also, i've also seen how this community has raised up the guys among us into godly men of integrity with husband and father hearts).

7) community does well when meals are shared. it's another anchor point. and there's a powerful fellowship in eating the same things in the same place that i believe Jesus understood and practiced. friendships are built over shared food. and it teaches us to share our things. in this house, we take turns cooking dinner and on the nights that we cook, we are also funding the meal, which sometimes has stretched pocket books, but we do it anyway. these meals are also the entry point for friends and neighbors as we invite them in to share our joy have their bellies filled with good things.

8) community is nourished and informed by hospitality. (i'll make this a separate post).

9) community, done well, heals. the people i live with today are not the same people i lived with a year ago when i moved in. they have blossomed, they have become more free, they walk with more confidence and on more solid ground. they have been healed by love. in having the opportunity to experience family in a different way and to try out new ways of relating in the safety of healthy relationships, we have all been healed significantly.

10) community probably shouldn't be just a one-year internship. there's no turning back. i think most of us feel that way about this. once you've tasted it, you don't want to go back to living alone in an apartment with a passing-in-the-night roommate or to a single-family house in the sprawling burbs. we love the mess and something about his resonates with ancient, divinely-instilled impulse for corporate identity. when i leave here, i'm going to grow into and alongside another family of friends in Madison (and with my love, Tim). as far as i can see from here, this'll be my lifestyle indefinitely, even after marriage and babies (though I'm open to being otherwise directed by the all-knowing Spirit of God).