“This is it, isn’t it?”
My friend Janelle and I had finally aligned our schedules to catch up over lunch. We each have four kids who are about the same age and had succumbed to the same string of shared viruses and snow days. The togetherness had become a bit. . . how shall I say it? . . . a bit much. As we ate our soups and sandwiches (grateful for a reason to wear jeans), we bemoaned how this particular season had revealed less-than-lovely versions of ourselves. I admitted to losing track of the times I had apologized to my children. Janelle nodded mid-bite in solidarity. She too had uttered her fair share of “I’m sorry’s.”
“But this is it, isn’t it?” I asked Janelle. “This is where the communal life becomes more than just a good idea. This is where we live it, huh?”
“I think so,” she nodded.
Silence lingered for a moment, but instead of filling the air with a sense of despair or unwanted surrender, the mood around us lightened. There was something freeing about letting go of these romantic ideals we often wrap around community and connection, as if the way of belonging is somewhere “out there” waiting on some utopian horizon.
But we do that, don’t we? We paint pictures in our minds of what our relationships with God or each other “should” look like and become discontent in the here and now. But the more I peel back the layers of Jesus’s words and ways as he described a people whose lives were intimately woven together, the more I realize how easily we romanticize the communal life. Because most days, living in nearness is far from sexy or serene.
It is kitchen sinks full of dirty dishes, morning breath in the midst of “I love yous,” and catching a sneeze right in the face. It is coordinating schedules and arms full of laundry and trying to listen to your kid talk about the latest Transformer movie while you simultaneously attempt to make spaghetti. It is going to spin class with a friend, where she will bear witness to the limitations of your deodorant and your body. It is trying again and again and again to make a lunch meetup happen, no matter how many times someone gets sick. It is whispering garbled prayers into the night, unintelligible by anyone other than God himself. It is noticing that one moment of silence after your ears feel like they’ve been assaulted by noise.
The communal life is much smaller than we realize, and rarely does it glow in amber light. No, no. Most days the communal comes in between the cracks and crevices of the ordinary. It is found within the awkward and sometimes clunky ways we coexist, constantly confronted by all the strengths and limitations of being human. It emerges within our actions and our reactions, revealing all the ways love still needs room to grow.
As
wrote,“To be human together is to continually crash into one another and all we carry.”
Her words remind me of that proverb1 that depicts people living in proximity as iron clanking against iron, and goodness, is that an accurate picture or what? How often life together feels less like kumbaya around the campfire and more like a scene from Mad Max? Sparks flying. Metal grinding. Sharp noises ringing in your ears.
The picture is far from glowy, but the image is not absent from light. Because as we begin to pay attention to what is revealed as we clank into one another–rubbing elbows at kitchen tables and car lines and conference rooms–we begin to see all the ways that the deep and abundant love of God is not someday, but here and now.
This is it. This is where the invitation into a communal life begins, where the echoes of “I am in them and you are in me” emerge from both the light and the shadows and become a song we can sing into our everyday existence.2
And maybe that still sounds a little romantic. A touch glowy, at best. I’ll give you that. But I think that when we let go of the picture-perfect ideals and instead lean into what is real, unfolding in our midst, we find a sacredness that has been with us all along, tucked with care into the corners the life at our fingertips.
This is it.
this week on the podcast
The Human Together podcast launched its first, full episode on Tuesday! If you haven’t had a chance to listen, I invite you to queue up my conversation with Korean-American storyteller and author
. We talk about how to be settled in the midst of in-between spaces where we don’t neatly fit into one thing or the other. She shares about her search for home and how paying attention to people, places, and (a shared favorite) food has given her a taste of the communal life.Episodes are free wherever you listen to podcasts (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, you get it), but we also offer extended episodes with additional guest questions and conversation to paid subscribers here on Substack. You can upgrade your subscription anytime. (Complimentary subscriptions are also available. Feel free to email me at sarah@sarahewestfall.com to find out more.)
Proverbs 27:17
I love this phrasing found in Jesus’ prayer in John 17:23.
I enjoy your writing. Thank you.
It's interesting how when the present becomes the past, it takes on a more pleasant perspective. The present is often filled with weary bodies, demanding schedules, and lots of noise. Looking back erases that, somehow.
So true. I find I long for community but then when I experience a lot of it it can feel tiring, too much or clunky and scrapy as you say. Thanks for the reminder to embrace it and to see the beauty in the reality of time with other beautiful flawed human beings instead of waiting for the ideal community to come along!