{"id":10545,"date":"2020-04-08T07:41:24","date_gmt":"2020-04-08T11:41:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/intramuralist.com\/?p=10545"},"modified":"2020-04-08T07:45:12","modified_gmt":"2020-04-08T11:45:12","slug":"a-story-to-tell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/?p=10545","title":{"rendered":"a story to tell"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As the days turn into weeks and our new normal continues, I\u2019ve found myself wrestling with perhaps one of the most profound, emerging truths. Don\u2019t get me wrong. I\u2019m believing the truth has always existed. But consistent with the prudent process of maturity, maybe previously I couldn\u2019t have seen it. Maybe previously I wouldn\u2019t have been humble, reflective, or something-enough<\/em> to recognize what\u2019s now so obviously real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hence, with all due respect to our INTJ\u2019s or ISTP\u2019s on the Myers-Briggs scale, DISC styles S and C, and our trendy Enneagram 4\u2019s and 5\u2019s, we need community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Allow me to say that once more\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We need community.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let us resist defining what community looks like; let us not dictate to our aforementioned introverts that they be forced into uncomfortable manifestations of gregarious sociability. But the learning here is that the need for community is not personality-based. This shutdown is acutely unveiling that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The concept of \u201ccommunity\u201d comes from from the Old French comunit\u00e9 <\/em>\u2014 meaning \u201ccommunity, commonness, everybody\u201d \u2014 which comes from the Latin communitas<\/em> \u2014 \u201ccommunity, society, fellowship\u201d \u2014 from communis<\/em> \u2014 \u201ccommon, public, general, shared by all or many.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commonness\u2026 everybody\u2026 shared by all or many\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What has been made glaringly obvious by this shutdown?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is shared by all or many.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In one way, I\u2019m thankful for the realization. I mean, as a nation \u2014 as a planet,<\/em> perhaps \u2014 we have spent so much, often passionate effort in finding our identity in some sort of society-severing pursuit, valiant as we have convinced ourselves the effort may be. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remember Robert Putnam\u2019s fascinating work from 2001, Bowling Alone\u2026<\/em> \u201cOnce we bowled in leagues, usually after work \u2014 but no longer.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Harvard professor addresses how we as a society have depleted so much of our social capital; we have \u201cdivorced\u201d community. He continues with the precarious consequence that \u201cpeople divorced from community, occupation, and association are first and foremost among the supporters of extremism.\u201d

It\u2019s as if we have forgotten what\u2019s shared by all or many.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s as if we have forgotten \u2014 or at the very least diminished<\/em> \u2014 community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My sense is we have diminished community by only equally valuing those who share our experience, circumstance, conviction, or ideology. And the moment equal value is reserved only for such likemindedness, we have made community something less that what it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We all need nourishment. We all need freedom. We all need to navigate through life in a healthy sort of way. Heck, we even all need toilet paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the point is that we need each other; we need community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No doubt what has personally, humbly helped me most is attempting to discern the biggest thing we have in common. If we can do that, then hopefully we will not value anyone<\/em> lesser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hence, holding this truth to be self-evident, every human ever on the planet \u2014 each of us \u2014 was created in the image of God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether you\u2019re a believer or a skeptic \u2014 with great respect for wherever you are \u2014 that\u2019s the biggest common denominator I can think of: created in the image of God.<\/em> And the more we look at others that way, the more we\u2019re able to resist paring the common down to something lesser\u2026 the more we recognize what community really is.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So as we wind through these days, allow me one more question: when all this is over, when we\u2019re at the end of COVID-19, what story will you tell?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we say we learned we<\/em> need community,<\/em> such will be a very good story to tell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Respectfully\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AR
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the days turn into weeks and our new normal continues, I\u2019ve found myself wrestling with perhaps one of the most profound, emerging truths. Don\u2019t get me wrong. I\u2019m believing the truth has always existed. But consistent with the prudent process of maturity, maybe previously I couldn\u2019t have seen it. Maybe previously I wouldn\u2019t have … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “a story to tell”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-event"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10545"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10554,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10545\/revisions\/10554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}