On Community

And thanks

I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of community in our lives recently. (To consider the demise of community in the United States and the epidemic of loneliness, I’d encourage you to read the follow-up interview The New York Times recently published with Robert Putnam, 25 years after his Bowling Alone.)

I certainly thought of community last week when, early on the Saturday morning I was to clean out my aunt’s apartment, I listened to a message my sister-in-law had left the day before. We’re 45 minutes away from South Bend, she said in the voicemail. We’ve stayed an extra night at my parents, and we’d be happy to help you in any way. I texted her to ask if she, my brother-in-law, and their two kids would be willing to come and help me pack up my aunt’s apartment. Her response was prompt and enthusiastic! We’d love to help. Less than an hour later, I learned that her parents were coming, too—with their minivan and all the tools and equipment they’d accumulated over the years helping other family members.

Can I tell you how much of God’s tangible love for me I experienced when the six of them showed up, dog in tow? My aunt’s apartment was packed, loaded, and vacuumed in less than four hours, and Ryan brought me home in time to enjoy the remaining day and a half of a visit from two of our older kids.

One of the most tender and bruised places of my life is left feeling alone to carry life’s responsibilities. Some of this is just life circumstances: losing my dad and my brother in early adulthood, being alone to care for my mom in this season of her decline. The thing is, of course, that when you’re left alone to carry burdens, you get good at independence. And because you look so capable, it perpetuates the assumption that you don’t need help. I lived a long time with the resentment of this dynamic, until I realized I would have to learn to invite others in. Now, when I ask for help, when I look to live and work in communal ways, I know that God is at work in me. It simply isn’t my nature.

This is a bit of a transition to post some content I’ve been a little hesitant to share. As many regular Habit readers know, I spent the month of June reflecting on the 10-year anniversary of my first book, Teach Us to Want. This wasn’t promotional content. Rather, it was a chance for me to revisit the book and remember the story of how God brought it to be. It was also a place for me to articulate perhaps some clearer insights about desire than I may have had 10 years ago. In June, I wrote about desire in prayer; desire as paradox; desire and mimesis; desire and a rule of life. I also hosted a wonderful conversation with Luke Burgis, author of Wanting, and A.J. Swoboda, author of The Gift of Thorns, to talk more about desire, and I hope you’ve watched it!

Part of this festschrift for Teach Us to Want was also meant to include words from a few others, people who had some part in launching and cheering the book into the world. I admit these words have been wonderful to receive, and I certainly think they’re the kind of vocational encouragement I’ve been needing. But, admittedly, they’ve also left me feeling a bit sheepish. Because how exactly do I publish words of commendation for my work without seeming more than a little self-serving?

Well, I do it like this. With a meditation on community. Because here’s what I keep learning, despite my deeply ingrained habits of independence and self-reliance. I need other people, and I need them more than I want to admit. Even though writing looks like a solitary work, it is a work born from community. The educational and professional communities of which I’ve been a part. The churches to which I’ve belonged. The family in which I was born into and the family which I have been making with my husband these last 28 years. The neighborhoods, the cities, the nations. When reading a book’s acknowledgements, you understand the role community has to play in the making of books. Believe me when I saw that I always read the acknowledgements first when I’m opening a book. I want to know whom the author is thanking, whose arms have steadied them like Aaron and Hur steadied Moses when his own hands got tired.

So today, I acknowledge both the words I have received from publishing friends and colleagues—and thank them and many others who made it possible for me to begin this work. If you’re interested to read some of those words, they’re over here on my website. I expect a couple more might be added by the end of the month, if you’re interested to check back. (And yes, I’ll probably remind you.)

Thanks to you who read here regularly and write to say what these words mean. And most of all, thanks be to God!