This meme popped up on a t-shirt on social media recently and I almost bought it! While this sentiment is probably true for many homeschooling families, after my initial chuckles, this made me sad. As Christians, we aren’t meant to live in seclusion. While the world is getting more backward by the day and parents must be more involved in the lives of their children more than ever, we shouldn’t wall off our homes and lives from our community. We are called to authentic and intentional community with one another. Community within our neighborhoods, work, and activity circles (like kids’ sports teams) are great and certainly valuable in our lives. However, the type of community I want to talk about goes a little deeper.
What I miss most from my husband’s time serving on active duty in the Army is the community. We all shared the “job”. The Army and the mission connected our lives in a pretty profound way. From there, I knew that I could find “my people” at the chapel, specifically the Catholic Women of the Chapel or the Military Council of Catholic Women. Every duty station had one or the other of these groups. Some were more active than others, but they were always there. The Army and our shared Catholic faith were the foundation on which I built many invaluable friendships and an authentic community.
When we moved to our forever home and began to build our new “civilian” lives, I quickly realized community was a much harder thing to find. It didn’t help much that we were only here a short year and a half before the COVID lockdowns squashed communities all over the country. It has been a long three years of reopening and rebuilding but I think this time has also allowed us to evaluate our commitments and rearrange our priorities.
Sometimes it feels like a daunting task to find meaningful community, even within your parish, given our season of life: being single, struggling with fertility issues or children with special needs, homeschool or full-time working parent, unusual work hours, or empty-nester. To find community we may need to get creative or take a leap. We can seek out valuable community online during those seasons when in-person fellowship just isn’t possible or start a group of your own that can meet unique needs. Scripture reminds us we aren’t meant to go about this life alone. “Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds. We should not stay away from our assembly, as is the custom of some, but encourage one another, and this all the more as you see the day drawing near.” Hebrews 10:24-25
When we feel like we can manage alone or a community is too hard to find, we must remind ourselves that even God exists in relationship as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We are made in His image and likeness after all. In a faith-filled community, we should lift one another up, encourage each other to pursue our God-given gifts, gather together in fellowship, and hold each other in prayer. While the village that currently surrounds us may not be a good fit to help us along our journey toward Heaven, we must be intentional about building an authentic community where we can grow in our identities as children of God.