From Where I Sit                             Judith Lynch (Melbourne)                        Judith's previous articles       Judith's website    

May 19, 2012                                   Back in ten minutes

The sign on blue-tacked on to the glass stated baldly: ‘Back in 10 minutes’. Wonderfully vague and totally unsatisfactory to the little girl in pink tulle and fairy wings, gazing longingly at the dazzling array of blingy things inside. When you’re only three 10 minutes might as well be a lifetime.

Maybe that’s how Jesus’ followers felt while they waited for him to return – every minute a lifetime. The women and men who gravitated to the upper room were excited, pumped up,  immobilised, confused, not sure what was coming next – if anything. The weeks since Jesus’ death had been full of the unbelievable and rumours were rampant.

They gathered together, waiting for what would happen next. Would Jesus return or what? All they knew was that they had to ‘wait’. They weren’t exactly a cohesive collection of women and men. The connection they shared was their belief that Jesus was the awaited Messiah. They weren’t like spectators cheering their team at a football match, briefly sharing a common space and enthusiasm. There were deeper and wider issues at stake.

It’s something we yearn for at times, that connection with others who share beliefs, convictions or even a lifestyle that is dear to us. Loosely described as community the reality can disappoint. Maybe that’s because we expect too much of it. We invest so much of ourselves in the misguided notion that a shared interest or even passion will override all the other differences that salt and pepper lives.

As a Catholic I am frequently assured that I am part of the parish community, as if saying ‘community’ often enough is enough to make it real. But is it? Do we find community at the regular Sunday Mass? Or are we just a disparate group of people, linked through Baptism and a Creed that moves in and out of relevance in our daily lives? That first bunch of believers needed to moved from their personal Jesus stories to something that they later described as ‘being one heart and one soul’.

Once upon a time we might have looked for, and maybe found community, in the Catholic school, youth groups and parish fetes. Now we want something more. Well, I do, anyway. I want to go to Mass and be greeted by name, to have a voice, to have my faith and its expression not just educated but nurtured. I want to use the gifts of the Spirit that are expressed in what I do and how I live and I want to have the chance to marvel at those gifts in others whom I see, week after week, but never get to know. Maybe our Eucharist gatherings are too big. Now there’s a rebel thought!

Experiences of true community can be hard to come by. It can start, as I did by joining a Sophia Circle . We were a group of six strangers, drawn together by a desire to honour our Christian spirituality. Apart from the fact that we were all women and all had been married, we probably had very little else in common. Our perceptions of politics, education, cooking, housework, religion – you name it, were and still are, very different. Yet in this group I find community, the commonality that all who pursue Truth find. We have learnt to listen to one another, to recognise that underneath the differences, we all spend lots of time just plodding along, finding God in the ordinary of our lives. If one is hurting, another jubilant, yet another facing tough decisions, we are able to be supportive without stepping rough shod over the intimate places where God hides in the joy and pain and all the other bits in between. We experience being one heart and soul.

 Eventually the shop door opened for the little girl in the pink tutu. After prayerful waiting the followers of Jesus experienced what it meant to be enveloped in love. Maybe we still wait to experience that unity of heart and purpose we call community, or maybe we are just slow to recognise its presence. Whatever way it happens it’s worth the wait.