As I mentioned last time, I am bringing the focus of my blog onto community, particularly as it intersects with Christianity and relationality.

I’m picking up my old blog again… Hmm. That means, in my mid-twenties, of all the ambitions I could have, I am building a “platform” of sorts about community. On a blog. Which barely anyone has anymore.

Imposter Syndrome is Sometimes Accurate

I hear of people in ministry who feel like (and perhaps, in reality, are) hypocrites. They preach one thing, and they practice another. They’re the poster child for one thing, then soon after they represent another. They may go on for years like this until they’re “found out” or “confess” or otherwise have a change of heart. (Which in not always bad, depending on what things were like before.)

I love these people and relate a whole lot. (There’s scarcely a person I’m not in the same boat with.)

Still, there is a lot of sadness, confusion, and the like around these instances when a “platform” is involved. It freaks me out. Might that be me? Like, will I spend years trying to undo what I was doing?

You see the same thing in the workforce. People who are doing their best, with the best intentions, but feeling like (and maybe actually being) imposters. Feeling, perhaps inevitably, ill-equipped to do what they have set out to do. But they try anyway. Maybe years later, they “climb the ladder” to become an influential leader. And they make many mistakes along the way. And still, to this day, they are bad leaders in one way or another.

Well, I figure I’ll just come right out and say it here on my second post, before anyone goes on too long thinking I’m anything.

I’m a hypocrite about community.

For as much as I write and speak about community, I’m not good at it. And I don’t often like it. Heck, I’m an introvert, an internal processor. And I’m independent at that. I don’t like leaning on people, getting in their way, potentially causing them harm or inconvenience.

I hide. I hide away in my room, or across the country on a work trip, or in some emotional fortress with walls and no windows.

When I first moved into my current community, I was depressed, anxious about whether I’d fit in, and wondering if I made the right decision.

It’s a year and a half later. I’m still here. But on at least a weekly basis, I’ll think of some reason it would be nice to leave and live in some idyllic place, that is, anywhere but here and now where I currently am.

But most of all, lately, I simply haven’t been around. I’ve been gone days. And nights. And weekends.

So now you know. I’m a hypocrite. The very thing I say I value and want to fight for, and find hope in, well, I’m bad at it and don’t like it.

Now that that’s off my chest….

I’m still here.

In my heart of hearts, I am simply convinced that God exists as 3 in 1 and made me, also, for community.

Internally and externally, many things pull me away from it. America tells me to dream of independence. Well, that dream, taken far enough in a direction, leads to all the nightmares I see in my nation today: deep-seated division, trauma of all kinds, vies for power, and crippling loneliness.

Screw that. I’m going to fight for community. For unity wherever possible, even across belief gaps. For the laying down of my power to the elevation of others. For carrying and, yes, letting others carry burdens so we aren’t all so alone.

I’m going to commit to surrounding myself with people who are different from me. In marital status. In age. In gender. In race/ethnicity. In relationality.

The narrative I see in the Scriptures is one that points toward a fulfillment of longing toward community. Whether you look at the beginning (Genesis 2) or the ending (Revelation 21), the God/human story arcs toward community, where all is reconciled in this grand and strange scheme.

We’re somewhere in the middle of that. And it’s hard. (And I think it feels that way because it isn’t supposed to be that way – otherwise it might feel actually natural.)

But I think my thing isn’t, maybe, to leave, but to stay.*

(*Obligatory note that toxic, narcissistic, exploitative, and codependent situations are good times to LEAVE. Excepting these situations, though…)

Maybe “staying” looks like changing sometimes — in fact, it does mean changing in many ways — but no matter what form it takes, it means continuing with the vision the community is important and worth fighting for.

And the solution isn’t to try to go find comfort. To just be with people who are just like me. Because those people don’t exist, and I’ll be cutting myself off from challenge, growth, and well-roundedness that come with diversity.

No matter what I may drop everything to pursue… comfort is temporary. It’s worth pursuing in ways, yes, and offering to others. But not as the end goal (for either).

Anyways. I’m a hypocrite. And I’m still here.

I didn’t spend much time with my housemates this week. I failed to adequately share my needs and grievances with them. I missed out on moments with kids. Conversations or prayers or conflicts with adults.

But… things can change. And indeed, they always do. I have next week, and the next. I am here, and for as long as I’m here, I will strive for presence within my limits. And I will stop and celebrate the moments I’m present.

Because those moments are a light in darkness.