Lament for Lost Community and other ramblings

Please don’t confuse my lack of blog with a lack of thinking. Actually, I’ve been so consumed by thought, I’ve had no room to write. Not even sure what I’m writing about right now; I just know if I don’t write something soon, I may forget how.

Been feeling a bit lost lately. I haven’t gone to church in over eight months. And the group of people that I was getting together with weekly for many months fizzled out in September. I guess I’ve lost a sense of community. And here’s what I mean by that. I always thought “community” was a really stupid word. It was like, if you rode bikes a lot, you were in the biking community; knitters with their community, and on and on. I used to listen to Garage Logic and “community” was a “fog-horn” word. Meaning that it was a word that had lost all its meaning in our society. And I believe the show was right to some extent. But just because a word loses its meaning, doesn’t mean that the meaning can’t be grasped again. The institutional church likes to claim the word community. And I’d agree that it is a community, but only to the same extent that the bikers and knitters are. A bunch of people with a similar interest, hanging out from time to time; Sundays in their case (Wednesdays if there’s kids involved). I know that I’m being quite the cynic, but there’s something about this that rings true to me, even if I am indeed taking it too far. So about eight months ago I left the institutional church; I left the community. At the time I had been meeting with a group of friends once a week to talk about God and Church and stuff like that. We’d been doing this for about five months when I left the institutional church. And here’s the deal; I didn’t even realize I’d stopped going to “church” because of these people. I’d stopped going for a month before realizing I wasn’t going anymore. Why? These people had replaced “church” for me. But that’s not even quite true; these get-togethers were not like church at all. What they were was Community. I had come upon something that in a lifetime within the walls of the institutional church I had never known. Community. Now on some level these gatherings could be labeled alongside the “knitters”, because we all did have something in common, a general disdain for the organized church; but there was something more there. Suddenly, I was living my life with these people. Not all of them, of course, but some of them. We were experiencing ideas together, talking through issues together, finding strength in each other. There was a fair amount of “bitching” in those gatherings. But, hell, these people had stuff to bitch about, and they’d been clammed up their whole lives. I think, sometimes, in order to move forward; you first must purge yourself of anger, frustration, sorrow, confusion, etc. From there, you can start to do positive things; things that really matter. Some people make a life’s work of complaining; and there’s nothing positive there. So anyway, this group just sorta ended. I was sorry to see it go. Not because I still had stuff to bitch about; but because I was ready to do something. What? I don’t know; I was just starting to sort that out. But, the real bummer is, I’d lost my Community. I was alone again; as I had felt I was for so long within the institutional church.

That’s where I’ve been for over a month. Reading blogs of people living in real Community, and bitter that I’m outside of this stuff. But would I find real community with these people, if given the opportunity? I don’t know. Something makes me think not. Though, again, I’m a cynic. It seems to me, we stumble through life, whether we like it or not. I stumbled out of the institution, I stumbled into this community of friends, I’ve stumbled out of it. But now I’m waiting for the next thing to stumble into. And I ain’t hittin’ nothin’.

So that’s why I’m lost. That’s why I’m angry. That’s why I’m sad. I believe in the power of real Love. I believe that Love equals Truth. I know that I must move forward, stumble forward, with a heart of Love, made of pieces of Truth. But it’s hard to do that. Because that requires something that doesn’t come naturally for humans. But, then again, if you’ve allied yourself with any one of many different theologies, you know that more is expected of you, than is expected of humans. Christians have charity, Muslims have devotion, Buddhists have kharma. I’m not sure what I am anymore. But I know I believe in God. A specific God. And I know that if my life is focused on attaining communion with that God, He will not deny me. It is often said that the afterlife is merely the attainment of your earthly desire. And my desire is quite clear. Though my path is dark, crooked, and filled with fog.