Tag Archives: culture of community

Community at Christmas

 

This year, the electricity stayed on. The forecast remains stuck in rain mode rather than snow. A few years ago, it snowed, and the power was off for days before our advent concert. We came anyway and huddled together in our winter coats and blankets, listening to a program powered by a generator. Regardless, the blessings are the same, the songs are heard and absorbed. The old story, is as precious as ever in a still-dark world, where innocents cannot be protected.

Our end of the island, about an hour north of Seattle by ferry, is home to around 15,000 citizens. Older islanders have been here for generations, farming, logging, and fishing. Newcomers join, desiring a slower pace. The island ambience attracts artists, who stay full-time or part-time between work in other places. Writers, sculptors, painters, dancers, musicians, dramatists, and others ply their craft.

The holiday season calls on much of this artistic talent, creating so many gatherings and performances that one has difficulty attending all of them. For our church’s advent concert this year, we knew to come early, for seats filled up quickly with islanders, not all from the church. We hardly breathed during the performance of musicians and readers. Where did all this talent come from? How blessed we are.

We know we are blessed. We have our computers, iPhones, iPads, Kindles, and Nooks, but they work only as long as we have electricity. We marvel at another blessing that our country struggles to keep—that of community.

The Novocaine Effect

 Few of us look forward to dental visits. Nevertheless, dental work today is less dreaded because of modern analgesics which numb the gum and allow repairs to be done in relative painlessness, compared to a generation or so ago. Indeed we become so used to the miracles of modern medical science that we tend to think all our physical ills should be resolved with a shot or a pill.

Perhaps scientific breakthroughs carry over into our expectations for all our human ills. We will elect the right political party, the right president, the right governor, and viola, our problems vanish in the space of an election. Supporters of a winning candidate cheer, happy days are here again, throw the rascals out.

Unfortunately, reality overtakes the happy visions. No political fix will solve our problems; no magician will wave a wand and destroy the demons. The black swans appear. The Great Recession or 9/ll or natural calamities destroy our assumptions that life is one big party.

In truth, no political winner can undo what we, the people, have done to ourselves over decades. We were the binge consumers, the pleasure seekers who did not count the cost, who lived only for today.

Relief will come only slowly, gradually, as we wake from the party, sobered by our hangover, hopefully to exercise responsibility for the lives we live as individuals. We can make the hard moral choices, we can build up our families and neighborhoods and faith communities, or we can continue waiting for the perfect political fix which will never come.

No Religious Preference

The fastest growing religious preference today is “no preference.” Those opting out of organized religion are not necessarily antagonistic atheists. They simply view the church as irrelevant.

In some ways the church is a victim of its own success.

During Europe’s Middle Ages, alleviation of human suffering and ignorance was the responsibility of the Church. No one else was concerned with the vast majority of human society: the poor (most of the population), the sick, the abused. Kings and nobles concerned themselves with land and power. When high church officials became like their secular counterparts, monastic and other movements called a remnant back to the path of service.

Gradually, as modern states arose, the Christian conscience infiltrated the greater society. Great Britain abolished the slave trade. Governments set up schools, hospitals, orphanages, and insane asylums. Religious groups still carry on this work in less developed countries, but secular organizations, like Doctors Without Borders, have joined them.

Today, birth, marriage, and death registration are performed by the state. Only the very devout mark the births of their children in religious ceremonies. Fewer and fewer couples bother to marry, even when they have children.

Yet the needs remain, the needs that spawned the growth of Christianity centuries ago. In a rootless, alienated, angst-ridden society, Christians offer the antidotes of commitment, community, and hope. The ancient agape love of the early Christians is as much an answer to postmodern society as it was to that of the Roman Empire.

Christianity cannot be sustained by laws. It never could, and Christians put their faith in peril whenever they ally with Caesar.

Christians now must practice religion the old-fashioned way: through intentional communities of faith to carry out callings of love, discipleship, and ministry.

The Parent Divide

We played board games today, a young family and I; father, mother, and two elementary school-aged children. Games are a favorite past time with them. From games, the children have learned skills: fair play, mental and physical dexterity, waiting their turn, and honesty, even if it means they lose sometimes.

Before the girls learned to read, their parents daily read stories to them. Now they enjoy reading for themselves, which carries over into both the pleasure of losing themselves in a good book and into academic skills. They sometimes write stories of their own.

Other activities fill their lives: sports, church, visits with friends, and sometimes travel to a new place.

I’ve heard of the digital divide, the advantages of children who grow up with computers versus those who don’t. While watching that family today, I thought of the parent divide. I wish all children had the advantages these have: parents who love each other, love their children, and take responsibility for raising them.

Surely, the most important task in the world for parents, relatives, and communities is personal nurture of the young. How well does our current culture encourage this work?