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The way the word ‘community’ gets tossed around these days it is portrayed as an almost romantic and idyllic way of life. As if living together with other people in ‘intentional community,’ will solve all of your problems and bring peace and purpose to your life. Community seems to be the ticket to life’s woes in so many people’s eyes. It’s funny though, how truly unromantic community really is.

 

I saw this fantasy in the eyes of the four girls who joined our community in January this year. They were starry eyed and hoped to gain so much from being a part of our community. They oozed excitement at being a part of it all and couldn’t contain the anticipation of digging in and really experiencing things together. They couldn’t wait to get down to business, be challenged, and walk away in 11 months better people. How cute I thought, knowing the trials they were about to encounter with community. I didn’t want to burst their bubbles though, so I let the bubble grow until they popped it themselves.

I have a love/hate relationship with the honeymoon stage of community. It’s the first few weeks or months of a group of people living together.   To anyone who’s had a college roommate or started a marriage can probably attest to this stage. Everything seems rosy, you try really hard not to get in anyone’s way, you’re extra careful with your words, you don’t leave your stuff out around the house because you want to respect the common living space, you avoid conflict at all costs for the sake of keeping the peace. Everyone is super nice….and it’s all a cute little cover up. 

This is not how real people live.

Around month two some things start to slip. You realize that it’s a lot of work to walk on eggshells and you notice that so-and-so kind of annoys you sometimes, you try not to mention anything, but slowly it gets harder and harder. You, yourself slowly start to leave your junk around more and more even though you have a hunch that it might get on someone else’s nerves. You brush it off though, because you know what?? 

You’re tired of putting on a show.

And here’s where community looses its luster and things get interesting. People hit the wall and show their true colors and things get messy. I can laugh about it now because I’ve been through it. I’ve walked through the mess and had to deal with it in other community situations. It’s happened in our little ComLife crew too. ‘The wall’ is the test of true community. You’ve got two options at this point. Either you press into some hard conversations, otherwise known as confrontation (gasp! Not that word!!), or you choose the path of least resistance and community is over. 

 

People always want the good stuff, you know, the real DEEP relationships…the kind where people know you. Like that show Cheers where everyone knows your name, but more than just knowing your name they know your heart, and if we’re honest, that’s what we really want. Deep down we want people to know us. We want people to know what we’re passionate about. We want to be able to let out what’s on the inside. True, we want to let out the good stuff, but what we really want to know is whether or not we can let some of the bad stuff out too.

Will people be able to handle me? Am I too much?

Some of the things going on inside me are not so nice-what will people think of me if I let this out? I’m tired of putting on a show…I want authenticity and genuine relationships, but we’ll never get there until we really KNOW each other. And that’s scary. It’s scary letting that person out that’s on the inside. It’s hard to trust people to handle our insecurities, our fears, our emotions, our passions, our desires, our hurts, our ideas, our longings.

 

It comes down to RISK. Everyone can make it through the honeymoon stage and most people make it far enough to hit the wall. These are both pretty inevitable stages of building authentic community. Getting past the wall is the hardest part and, like I said, it’s the deciding factor on whether or not you have true authenticity and true community. If no one’s willing to risk sharing who they really are, everyone will live in oblivion and surface level relationships will continue to prevail.

No one’s looking for surface level anything these days. Community wouldn’t be a buzz word right now if we weren’t searching for something deeper, something that would quell the desire we have to be known. 

I think the only way we can be truly known is if we’re willing to take a risk.

The community I’m in right now is at this vital stage. Are we willing to take some risks? Are you willing to take some risks in your relationships with others? What would happen if you risked honesty and didn’t shy away from confrontation? My next blog is a story from our ComLife community about a risk we took. I hope it spurs you on to take some risks too.

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