Christian Hippies #2

Today I drove about an hour east of my home to Garland, Texas to visit my second "monastic community."
Many differences came out of this community, most that I would say are evidence of adapation to the Texas environment. Beyond that, however, they are a younger group, not so much by age as much by vocation. They had only begun living in community--and nominally calling themselves an abbey 8 months ago.

They mentioned how their neighbors were not very friendly(indicative of the middle class, mobile North Texan)....so the outreach bit, well they're waiting until they move to a larger home in a slightly "rougher" section of town. Interestingly, their strong interests in both the arts scene and beer tasting (mentioned several monastic communities that made wine/beer....how would the CC's respond to that one?), has provided for most of their ministry.

I did not really identify as much with the background of these folks. The married couple I spoke with, one had grown up in community in some part, offspring of true hippie parents (the whole deal) and the other a child of a divorced couple. At the other communities, the disatisfaction with "boring" middle class, white life seemed to fuel alot of common interests and stories. However, their background seemed to create a way of understanding with their families that was absent in the other communities and people I've spoken with.

I wonder about this idea of "community." Does it draw the broken? Today we spoke about how it drew people who were often "easy going" in nature, or at least those were the people that survived living in community (aka living with non related people in very close quarters, both physically, emotionally, and spiritually). But there was also this expressed element that those living in community somehow "needed" each other, as though they could not make it on their own.

Are we all in need of others? Are those living in community just the only ones to recognize it? Drawing the broken, what kind of "sin" or hurt are we talking about....must it be overt, the public/"big time" sins we all talk about....or what about the relational sin? the social sin? Sometimes we talk about the longer we have a relationship with God, counterintuitively, we become more and more dependent on him. Maybe this whole community thing is like that too, we become increasingly dependent on one another, in a good way....we hope, the more we are willing to open up to one another.

The achievement-minded, individualistic person in me questions whether I could really "die to myself" enough to join something like this. Its so much more than an outreach program. Its a very different lifestyle behind closed doors.