*Community*

I’m relearning everything these days. One of the most dramatic overhauls is happening in the area of community. It’s always been a buzz word for me, representing an ideal that isn’t actually attainable, but one that the Christian world glorifies. However… I’m starting to come around...

My problem before was that my idea of community was based on the assumption that we’re all a bunch of broken, helplessly ruined people using one another to scrape by. And I think that’s a popular mindset, one we cling to when we feel broken and helpless, and can’t see a way out of that without assistance. It serves as a security blanket for us and creates a sense of intimacy. But if the people in our lives are simply resources to be grasped at in a desperate attempt to meet our needs, fill our gaps, patch up our shattered selves… well, I’m starting to think that’s a little bit pathetic.

Because the truth is, we’re not broken and helpless – we are glorious and empowered thanks to the nature of Christ in us. And that means we aren’t lacking or needy, but actually filled to the brim with beautiful and amazing things to share. As a friend told me recently, Grace allows us to receive from one another – always and abundantly. Suddenly, community looks like a big glory fest, a massive collaboration of blessing and joy, of wisdom and grace, of power and truth. Now that I can get excited about… that I can believe in.

Friendships shouldn’t be about commiserating in brokenness, or about striving to fill one another’s gaps. I’m experiencing an entirely different version of relationship that honors the truth I’m now defining myself by. And it’s a richer and sweeter flavor of community than I ever imagined was possible.

True friends swoop in to help when you haven’t asked for it. They pick up the phone when you call too late at night. They call you family for no good reason. When you inconvenience them, they somehow make it sound like their privilege. They invite you into the safe space of their presence when you’ve forgotten how to love yourself. They are loyal and dependable to a point that blows your mind. They tell you when you’re wrong when you need to hear it, and they support you when you’re wrong when you need that instead. They make themselves your comrades, seamlessly coming alongside you in your “doing life”, and take for granted that your burdens are theirs and their happiness is yours. They urge you to receive when you feel unworthy. And when you’re being too hard on yourself and feel you deserve a reprimand, they let you off the hook with an abundance of grace you can barely handle.

I'm rereading one of my favorite stories from childhood, The Wind in the Willows. Rat is my favorite character, because he's such a faithful and unassuming friend. But Badger is amazing in this one scene, where Mole and Rat have taken refuge at his home unexpectedly after being caught in a blinding blizzard in the Wild Wood - somewhere they never should have been in the first place. In the midst of their distress, they are fortunate enough to happen upon the Badger's home, and he welcomes them with a graciousness and generosity that reminds me of what I'm receiving from my friends right now. Mole and Rat come inside, get warm and dry, get in comfy attire, and sit down to a beautiful hot dinner. And they begin to tell Badger the story of how their foolishness got them into this predicament in the first place. Kenneth Grahame writes of the Badger: "He sat in his arm-chair at the head of the table, and nodded gravely at intervals as the animals told their story; and he did not seem surprised or shocked at anything, and he never said, 'I told you so,' or, 'Just what I always said,' or remarked that they ought to have done so-and-so, or ought not to have done something else."

That's Grace. That's what I see in the faces of my friends every day. It looks like Jesus. "It smells like love." It is entirely and purely beautiful and powerful. And I am blessed beyond measure to receive it from the amazing people in my life.