The Long Night by Jessica Kantrowitz

Author:Jessica Kantrowitz [Kantrowitz, Jessica]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-5064-5665-2
Publisher: Fortress Press
Published: 2020-03-16T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

Rilke, Rilke’s Book of Hours, 52. ↵

Mary Oliver, Dream Work (New York: The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986), 14. ↵

11

Finding Your People (and Losing Them)

Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than they love the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest and sacrificial.

~Dietrich Bonhoeffer[1]

I’ve been searching for community for as long as I can remember. In part, I inherited that search from my parents. We moved around so much when I was a child, and we were always looking for a church to be a part of but never quite finding a good fit. As I grew up, I was searching for something deeper than church. I was searching for fellowship, for a place where I really fit in and could be myself. I was searching for a group of people that would make me feel the way books made me feel: that we were on an adventure together, that we needed each other, that we all had gifts that complemented each other’s and a role to play.

When I found the campus group at college, I tasted some of that community. I fell in love with the beautiful variety of people, all different personalities but with a common desire to know God and be real with each other. I loved that most of the other groups and cliques on campus tended to dress alike, and do their hair similarly, but in the Christian fellowship, we all did our own thing. I was drawn, also, to the LGBT group on campus even though I identified as straight and cisgender. Their signs said all were welcome, and so I went to a few of their meetings. They weren’t religious meetings, but I felt the Spirit of God there as much as at the Christian fellowship.

After college, I went to an Evangelical seminary, where I never really found the community of close friends I was seeking. For my final mentored ministry, I did an internship at a large Evangelical church in Boston, living in their international student house and filling various ministry roles. It was a great experience but living in a dorm setting and sharing a kitchen with nine other people convinced me that I needed more personal space. I decided to look for my own apartment or one with just one other housemate.

Instead, for financial reasons as well as the fear of loneliness and the deep, sheer pit of depression, I responded to an ad for an intentional Christian community. The people were warm and friendly, the food homemade, the children adorable, and the house much lovelier than anything I’d be able to afford otherwise. At age thirty-two, having just sworn off communal living, I moved into an even bigger community than I’d ever lived in before. A year later, the worst depressive episode of my life began, and for better or for worse, over the next several years this community was where it was going to play out.

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