How do you spell community? R-I-S-K

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Posted in General Articles by Amanda Dums on 5/3/2009

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
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.