Thoughts on Community

When I began this blog, I envisioned it as a place for trying out ideas. The scheme being that I would post my developing thoughts in some form (kind of like beta versions of new software) and glean wisdom from those friends and passersby who would offer wise commentary. This has pattern has been largely successful, and I am glad for the dialogue that you, my friends, have generated by responding to my posts.

You may have noticed that I have not really posted many ideas in some time. This is best explained by the fact that I have been thinking in a realm that is new to me. And when an idea is truly in its infancy, trotting it out for critique can be scary. So I have been thinking, imagining, and speculating about a set of issues for the last couple of months and keeping it mostly quiet. But I think I am ready now to begin cautiously tossing some of these ideas around more publicly. What follows is me trying to 'get at' a set of thoughts and ideas that have been on my mind for a while. Please pardon the disorganization.

I grew up in a small town. Mt. Olive, Mississippi was a place where you could literally get to anyone’s home on foot or on a bike in a matter of minutes. Everyday when I came home, I returned to a place where meaningful human interaction was naturally present.

In college I discovered loneliness. It was so strange, honestly, to know that people were all around me, and yet I felt isolated. I spent a lot of time freshman year sitting alone in my room trying to figure out why I felt the way I did. I had never felt lonely before, because for the first 18 years of my life I had always returned from school to a home that was alive and inviting. As a freshman, I returned often to a room where I was alone.

Fortunately, by the end of college, I managed to squeeze most of this loneliness out of my life. I was busy and involved, but more importantly I lived in an apartment with three great friends. When I returned to my dwelling place at the end of the day, I usually found good company. Our apartment was a gathering spot for friends, who found it convenient and easy to simply “drop in” and say hello. Our apartment was rarely unoccupied, and loneliness was left almost unfelt that year.

For many people, like myself, senior year in college is a pinnacle of life, and it is easy to see why. We look back fondly on the friendships we had, the proximity we had to those friends, and the time we spent with them both delving into intellectual subjects and simply goofing off. Who can help but smile? As a friend of mine once told me, “College was so great because whenever you wanted to go do something, you could just grab ‘the guys’ and go.”

College campuses, college towns and college residences tend to provide two things that we take for granted—proximity to friends and the daily opportunity for meaningful interaction with strangers. Because in college we lived near or with our friends, contact with them was easily built into our daily schedules. Even on the busiest days in college, I had good interaction with friends because it was so easy and natural to do.

One thing that seems to return for many of us after college, however, is loneliness. Perhaps those who relocate to a new city in order to land a job experience this resurgent loneliness the most. But even for those who go to familiar cities, the adjustment to life out of college can be tough. Senior year we were surrounded by friends; first year out, we likely are not. In the post-college demands of jobs and bills, career advancement, marriage, and moving, we tend to gradually lose many of the things we valued about college. First to go is proximity to friends—our new residences are selected based on availability of employment and (as much as we can afford it) personal aesthetic desires. We want to live in “a nice neighborhood,” be close to our jobs, and we want to live comfortably. In the process of satisfying this matrix of requirements, it is hard to keep track of much of anything else.

It is easy to be lonely that first year out of college. With a world of greener grass close in our rearview mirrors, living alone and going to work with strangers can seem pretty bleak by comparison.

But most people grow out of that loneliness, right? After a year or so on the new job, don't most people make friends with their coworkers, maybe get married or find a church or other social group to interact with? And then, doesn't loneliness just dissipate like fog in the sunshine of our new lives? I think for some this may be the case, but not for everyone.

I've had the growing impression lately that most people in America are kind of isolated and probably struggle with loneliness with at least some frequency. Some may feel it more accutely than others. Recent college graduates, for instance, are very aware of being lonely if they were surrounded by friends while in college. And maybe others feel it less acutely, simply because they have become accustomed to being lonely. I know people like this.

Of course, I'm still only one year out of college, and I'm merely piecing together observations that could be skewed. But there is a body of literature that supports my general idea: that many Americans struggle with loneliness and isolation. I’m not one who puts tremendous weight on social science statistics, but I do think good studies, viewed with humility, can shed light on societal trends. And a recent study ( http://www.asanet.org/galleries/default-file/June06ASRFeature.pdf) suggests a trend toward isolation and lack of community over the past two decades. The study is based on a survey given in 1985 and 2004 that tries to uncover who people talk to about "important matters." Since 1985, the trend has been toward talking to fewer and fewer people about things that are important. And there has been a significant increase in the number of people who talk to only 1 person or no one at all.

As most of you know, this year I’ve had the bizarre and beautiful experience of living in an intentional community with 11 other people my age who share the same core religious convictions. I did not know any of these people when I moved here, and now seven months later, I find they are able to listen to me and speak truth into my life in a powerful way.

Of course, the kind of intense community that I have experienced at the TFA--12 people in one house--is not for everyone, and it is not really sustainable over the long term. But the great positives of my time here this year have made me wonder why more American Christians do not place priority on building some level of community and fellowship into their lives. Is it because we value privacy too much? Are we too concerned with owning land or big houses? Is it just because being alone is the easiest thing to do in suburban America? Is it the design of our cities?

I hope to develop these thoughts more later, but here is a start. I'm intersted in your feedback. Do you know loneliness? Are your friends lonely? Are you isolated? If so, why is that the case? Can you imagine a better way of living life?