Intentional Community

Tonight has been one of the most meaningful ones yet.

After our respective afternoons today, we gathered around the tv and watched my favorite Christmas movie (it's A Year Without A Santa Claus for those of you wondering). Afterwards we talked, but not about the movie. We talked about community and what it means to us.

One pillar of the Young Adult Volunteer (YAV) year is intentional community. We've been living together for three months so far, but something has felt amiss. Finally, we confronted it. We all defined what community means to us and the expectations we had for this year. Several people had thought it would be easy. Several people thought that we would "coexist" and be roommates. We all had different definitions of community.

What does community mean? Who is our community? Community is the people who will be there for you no matter what. They are more than friends and family. You should not be afraid to go to anyone in your community for anything. Yeah, there are boundaries, but that's part about being intentional: knowing who to go for what and when.

We all came to the conclusion that we weren't putting forth effort to get to know everyone. We became comfortable in two separate cliques and weren't trying to get to know the others. The people we hung out with were like us and we naturally gravitated towards each other.

But that's not how we should live for this year. Yes, we can appreciate the people who are like us but we haven't been trying to get to know the others who aren't. For this year to be successful, we need to work with each other, learn each others strengths and weaknesses, lights and shadows, loves and pet peeves. We have to keep trying harder or we are going to miss what half this year is about.