I had to go to an AA meeting Monday night for a class assignment (for my mental health and psychiatric nursing class – understanding group therapy or something like that). I didn’t really know what to expect from the meeting and didn’t really want to go, but in the end, I learned about community and it really made me think.
This is how the community played out in (this) AA meeting – whenever someone introduces themselves, everybody else says “hi ____” to that person to make them feel welcome. Whenever someone is done talking they are applauded. The group laughs together, cries together, grows together, and learns together. They are learning from each other and working toward a common goal (in this case, sobriety), and they are
always ready and willing to support one another. They start and end the meeting praying together (not that all of them believe in God, but they talk to a “higher power” anyway because they recognize that they don’t have the strength to do things on their own), and a constant theme I heard was that they take life one day at a time and pray for the strength to make it through every single day instead of trying to take everything all on at once.
So this got me thinking about true Christian community. I can only think of a couple times I’ve seen real Christian community played out in such a spectacular way. One example was at the orphanage in Delhi, India – those kids understood community (and loved living in community even though it was really their only “choice”). They prayed together, grew together, fasted together, laughed and cried together, and understood what it meant to be in community with one another.
I yearn for that kind of community. I often feel very detached from everything (well, almost everything – I am connected very closely to the 34 other senior nursing students at my school that I do everything with). I don’t feel like I have or am living in true Christian community with anyone. I have roommates, but we don’t share everything, we don’t seek to grow together, we all go about our separate ways every day without a thought as to how the others are doing. I have a church home, but I don’t feel connected because during the “school year” I’m usually 2 ½ hours away from them. I have a church that I attend when I’m at school, but I don’t really know any people there except the pastor (because he’s also the chaplain at my school) and the 10-ish other students from my school who all ride together on Sunday mornings. I’m not involved in any groups this semester because of my crazy schedule and my readiness for graduation [80 days!] and my internship that’s starting up after spring break, so I feel detached from the greater community of my college too. I even feel somewhat detached from my family – I know they’re only a phone call away, but it seems like I’m missing so much by not being there (in case you didn’t know, I have four siblings that were adopted last March, so they’re still learning English and the American culture and such things…and it’s just fun to be there for them).
I’m struggling. Lord, I need you. I need your community. I need people to grow with and laugh with and share with and cry with and pray with.
