Blogologue

It's far to beautiful out to be inside in my basement posting, but I gotta.

Awhile back, I posted about Solitude. Fitena responded with this comment:

"I cannot relate to this post simply because I've never been in a relationship.
But I would tend to disagree with the Single=Solitude thesis.

I embrace my solitude and seek it at times.

Maybe I would have considered myself single if I were living alone but am not.
And sometimes I wish the houyse were mine alone to bask in my solitude.

I find this very strange aout mysel ometimes, since am such a social
person...."

I too am very social Fitena, and I didn't mean to link singleness with solitariness, but after your post here, and some others, I see you are living in an environment very different than the one we have here in the US, where we have lost community.

When Addy was born, I wish there were a mess of people waiting for the blessed event, I wanted to take her around to the whole neighborhood and say "Look what we have!" But here, we can't, we don't. Sigh.

In Mauritius, what a beautiful thing that one can have a community where things are shared with love and empathy and excitement and all the feelings that one encounters in their lives...

But in the US, if my neighbor was starving, or suicidal, or otherwise in desparate straits, I know they would not count on me to help them. Were they to do so, I would help gladly, but I know most neighbors would prefer that they were left alone. Not to mention, the person who needed help would more than likely be viewed as pathetic, needy, maybe pulling a con...or just kind of imposing. I do not feel I could go to my neighbors for more than maybe a cup of sugar. We have lost community here.

And I don't think most folk realize what a huge loss that is.

Why do I care about this so much to go post when I should be outside planting my tomatoes?

Because in the book Searching For God Knows What, Donald Miller said the same thing---we have lost a crucial thing in the loss of community. And while I know you are not a Christian Fitena, but a Muslim, probably in the Koran it may emphasize also the importance of community.

So the churches are supposed to be this community, but way too often, maybe even most of the time, they turn into something else. A place to go to feel like one is a good person, a place to feel like one is doing their duty, a place that signifies oneself and their position--rather than the community of believers who bear one anothers burdens.

When J and I hit a rough patch, I am afraid to talk to my church sisters. I am afraid they will make a judgement about me that will follow me the rest of my time there. Even though our rough patches are always resolved, I fear that they will look at me months later and recall only the time I spilled my guts about the rough patch in my marraige. Or they will remember me as the shrill desparate person I felt at that point, or as the negative somewhat unhappy person I was at that point...Or never call me again because they have their own problems. So much for the community. Sometimes it is tough to even really connect with one person and share those difficulties.

In the bible, Paul sets out how we should live in communities as believers, sharing each others burdens. The jews did this so well...if one's neighbor had company and had no food to share, the other neighbors brought over what they had so the host would not feel shame, so the community would not seem poor or greedy. I cannot imagine that happening anywhere anymore. Maybe it happens in Mauritius. It happened in Russia...one legacy of communism was a strong sense of sustaining one's community, because the rough patches were not so few...the memory of hunger, cold, fresh in their memories. They knew that they had to sustain their elderly neighbors if they found need. If they didn't, they brought shame on themselves for being greedy.

What a loss here. We all live in our big houses separated by our expansive lawns...we share nothing but a street. Maybe some trees.

I guess this saddens me most because I'm not sure what we got in exchange for our community...the right to be left alone? Left alone to do what? Die quietly in an easy chair? Do drugs? Not share?

I go back to the bible again, those communities shared Christ as the head...that we would afford grace when offended and forgive easily, share easily, laugh together and cry together.

Sigh. How to get that back. Maybe I will move to Mauritius. Fitena got an extra bed?

And let me take this chance to say how much I appreciate blog meister Fitena--prolific commenter, always bringing a fresh air of different perspective to things. French English Mauritius...thank heavens for the fresh air.