Skip to main content

This Intentional Village

There was a time, not so long ago, when joining a church was the expected thing. That’s what happened with my parents. It was the 50s, and my older sister came home from her New Orleans public elementary school and wanted to know when was she going to start confirmation class? My dad had heard this Unitarian preacher on the radio – A. Powell Davies – offering to debate fundamentalists. So Dad called up the local Unitarian church and they started going there. Going to church. It was what you did.

It is a completely different world now. Especially if you’re under the age of 50, the expectation is that you don’t go to church. Why would you? You can get any information you want from the internet, your social needs can be met through your co-workers or friends.

And yet …

Every week, I see a village at work. No, not every week. Every day, because life doesn’t just happen on Sunday and the relationships aren’t limited to once a week. People come in, and realize they’ve found their tribe. They make friends with smaller circles within the church, friends who meet during the week to play games, do the work involved in keeping this little village running, talk and go deeper with their own growth. I see them taking care of each other. Loving each other through casseroles, babysitting, help with moving.

It’s not a perfect village. I’m not sure those exist, and if they did, I’m quite sure I wouldn’t qualify for membership. There’s never quite enough money, or workers, or time. We don’t get along harmoniously. We chafe at change. We disappoint each other.

And maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be, in this great, old-fashioned, social experiment. We have rough edges, but somehow in our clumsy bumping around, we smooth some of them down. We learn how to say what we need. We learn how to apologize. We learn how to be who we are, and at the same time, allow others to be who they are.

I swear, you could make a Capra movie about this place.  With a little Richard Linklater thrown in.  


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Me and My Collar

You may run into me on a Friday, in my neighborhood, so it's time I let you know what you might see. When I was doing my required unit of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE), my supervisor suggested that any of us who came from traditions where a clerical collar was an option, take one "collar week," to see how we were treated, as opposed to wearing regular professional clothes. After a couple of days, I joked to the Catholic priest, "How do you manage the power?" In regular clothes, I would walk into a patient's room, and it would take about 5 or so minutes of introductions and pleasantries before we could really get down to talking about their feelings, their fears, the deep stuff. With most people, as soon as that clerical collar walked in the room, with me attached, they began pouring out all the heavy stuff they were carrying. I was riding the bus back and forth every day, and though not quite so dramatic, the collar effect was alive there, to...

While to That Rock I'm Clinging

Pete Seeger died. I hadn't cried all day, even though I had thought about this day before it happened; dreaded it coming, because it would mean that death really did come to all of us, even those of us as good, as filled with Spirit and meaning, as willing to live out our values day by day, as the one we called "Uncle Pete." I won't go into all his virtues. You can google that. I will say that the hagiography you see right now about Pete Seeger is far closer to the truth than most sentimental postmortems. A Facebook friend, Karen McCarthy, posted a video -- And I broke. I never met Pete, unlike some of my peers. But his were the first songs I heard. I still have the LP, Birds, Beasts, Bugs and Fishes.  Abiyoyo, Abiyoyo ... Perhaps he was my first minister. His were the songs played in my house, and my parents lifted him up as a hero. For fighting for justice. For the Hudson River. For adhering to his values during the McCarthy hearings, and then agai...

Hey, Vampire Slayer -- Who's Your "Watcher"?

I was watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer* one day, like you do, and I thought, "Wow. I wish I had a Watcher." According to the Buffy Wiki , a Watcher is: a member of the Watchers Council, devoted to tracking and combating malevolent supernatural entities (and particularly vampires), primarily by locating individuals with the talents required to fight such beings and win. More specifically, Watchers were assigned to train and guide Slayers, girls that were part of a succession of mystically powered young women who were destined to face the forces of darkness. And then, quick as a vampire turns to dust when stabbed with a wooden stake, I realized, "Ohmygosh, I TOTALLY have a Watcher." My Watcher is named Ken, and he's an expert in Bowen Systems Theory, and he coaches me, teaching me about the vampires I encounter, and drilling me in how to slay them. No, the Vampires aren't people around me!  Far from it. The Vampires are my own responses to anxiety...