Communality

Some clever poet guy once said "no man is an island". Some clever adidas T i saw the other day at Dicks (a rather unfortunate name for a sports store) said "every hero needs a team, every team needs a hero". One of the biggest things i have learnt on my trip is of the importance of connecting with others. Through how much i have missed being able to really connect with and share experiences with friends and family back home. But also the way (sometimes in very short time periods) i have connected with others i have met from many countries and cultures.

I guess its strange for me to talk about connecting with others being that i'm about as independent as they come. I can't stay in one place long at all. This is a part of who i am but can also be a weakness and i know it means i have to work hard at making sure i dont lose the connections i am so lucky to enjoy with the friends and family that i love.

How is it that people can feel lonely in a world of so many billion people? How can we be lonely when we are constantly pass other people? This seems one of the greatest tragedies of the western world that i live in. The part built into me which says "look out for number 1" That says "work hard enough for yourself and you'll be a success". Living like this leaves little time for truly connecting with others.

I spent a weekend in Lexington with a community that are really trying to live out there lives together, trying to follow Jesus teaching of loving God and loving others. About 25 of us came from around the states to hang out together and learn and experience what this kind of lifestyle looked like for them. Both through spending time with these people and being involved in a mainly student church in Lexington i saw groups of people who were daily truly involved in one anothers lives and not just on a friendship hanging out at the pub together kinda way, nor as a family i have to coz we're related kinda way. But in a deep, real, practical kinda way in which they really help and support one another daily.

I know that i have friends and family that i can trust and can rely on, but i want to be there for those who aren't so sure of that. We are all on a journey, and i have been realising how important it is to allow others with us on that journey and to look out for those who have no one.

Two are better than one, for if they fal, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls.