August 5, 2006

I just read an interesting article. It talks about the loneliness that seems to be growing in a nation of almost 300 million people. How strange it is that we have better tools for communication and more ways to do it but that we have forgotten what it means to trust someone. How strange it is that we watch reality shows that supposedly take us inside the "private" lives of so many people (that's a subject for another day) but we can't walk across the street or across the yard to share a moment with our neighbors. I see it every day in the faces of people--wanting to be known but afraid to drop their guard. Wanting to be on a new level of intimacy with someone but afraid to find out that they might be different or weird. It's a sad state for us to exist in. It's part of why I do what I do as a pastor. I really feel like that the church community, when it's done right (and it's not often done right), can be such an answer to the loneliness and isolation that fills our hearts. It's a way to find travelers who are moving in the same direction, sharing the same fears and looking for the same help to get where they are headed. I love it when those breakthroughs come--when a face turns from deep loneliness to that sense of belonging. At our church, we call it doing life together. And when you've done it that way, I don't know that there is any other way to do it. I hope you find that place, that community, that someone who can know you beyond all the layers you put up. It's the only way to really "do" life. Till next time...