Community -

The other day I had a moment where there was a lull in an otherwise busy day and happened to wander into a very pleasant conversation. Some women were reminiscing about the days when we had laundry hanging outside on a line. Well that was the apparent subject matter anyways. The underlying idea was a sort of nostalgia about the community which they enjoyed as children. Laundry is one of those simple things that reveals and represents a sense of community which seems to have been more easy to come by in past years. They observed the openness of putting your delicates out on a rope for all the neighbors to see and in return seeing their linens, blowing in the breeze. You could watch the neighborhood's children growing up as you saw first diapers, then tiny dresses and little overalls. Now we carefully stow our laundry in washers and dryers, efficient and low profile. In a similar fashion, families carefully sequester themselves in their homes and leave quickly in their traveling box, tinted windows make them a little less visible. Things now are fast, they work so perfectly, life is a well-oiled machine! That means relationships are a bit farther off on the radar. When you can drive by the old neighbor mowing his lawn instead of having to walk by there's no danger of being stopped for a conversation, that might make you late to work. Things fit so well in boxes and the more private the better.

Wait -- that doesn't seem quite right.

Community is beautiful.

People laughing, talking, working together to create a better more nurturing living environment, thats more like it. I'm afraid that that form of community has flown away on the wings of time. And yet, hope is not altogether gone, communities still exist and people still speak to one another. O God let us not forget the blessing and yes the necessity of the comfort and company of our brothers.