A Call

Let us consider how to stimulate one another
to love and good deeds,
not forsaking our own assembling together,
as is the habit of some,
but encouraging one another;
and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
Hebrews 10:24-25

I wanted to start blogging again long before I knew what I wanted to write about. All these nebulous ideas swirled around in my head, ideas shifting and reorganizing and finally clicking into place. What do I have to say? What do I want to say? What do I need to say? Because I want this is be more than adding to the noise. 

And at last, I came to this: community. 

I want this blog to be a call to radical community. To the idea of being rooted and connected to the people around us in costly, deliberate ways. I want us to look our cashiers in the eyes instead of rushing through the checkout. I want us to joyfully grab a box when someone is moving in. I want us to live and love generously, with open arms and open doors and open hearts.

This kind of openness doesn't come easily to me. Picking up my labels, I'm an enneagram type 5, highly sensitive, an introvert. I'm thinker, a learner, a solitary processor. But there's something better than my comfort.

So much of the heartache and tragedy of this world comes back to a lack of human connection and tender care. I've heard the opioid crisis referred to a crisis of despair. I read about healthy young men dropping out of the workforce to sit home alone. Isolated seniors are at greater risk of dementia, high blood pressure and depression. Be it rising suicide rates, increased addiction, declining marriage rates and even the drop in birthrates, we aren't connecting to each other, to our communities, to our world. And it's killing us.

I believe there's a better way forward and it's about connection. I want to call us all to better connections. To genuinely care about the people next to us. About our schools and our local businesses and mail carriers.

I can't heal the whole world. But if I care for the people next to me and you care for the people next to you, maybe we can?

So this blog will be an encouragement to be radically rooted in our communities. It will be part confessional, part journal, part epistle. It will be informed by my faith, but I hope everyone will be able to draw truth from it.  As I attempt to put these ideas into practice, I hope will you too and together, we can transform our communities into something better and healthier. I at least want to try.

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What I'm listening to: Build My Life by Housefires

Show me who you are and fill me
With your heart and lead me
In love to those around me.

This whole song speaks volumes to me right now.

What I'm reading: Defiant Joy by Staci Eldredge

"We dissent by casting our vote against the belief that sorrow and endless suffering win."

Technically I'm doing an online study, not reading the full book, but I love Staci's writing and I spent a solid 20 minutes in tears listening to her read from Defiant Joy this morning.

What I'm watching: Cobra Kai, Season 2

“Life’s not black and white. More often than not it’s gray. And it’s in those gray areas where Johnny Lawrence’s Cobra Kai sometimes shows mercy.”

Next year we'll have to actually pay for a month of YouTube, but it's totally worth it. I love the underlying message of everyone deserving a second chance and that no one is the simple, one-sided character we assume them to be.