Community Part 6

It is not good for man to be alone... Genesis 2:18

If not for me, then why community?

Last week, in using marriage as a marker for community, I was suggesting that marriage is an archetype of sorts of community. If you'll entertain it, here's something more.

At the very inception of marriage, God says, "It is not good for man to be alone..." How transcendent is this statement? Aloneness in permanence is not good. Humans are needful creatures.

About three years ago, this idea was powerfully driven home to me. First, a little background. On the Myers-Briggs personality assessment, I'm a big time T. As I understand it, a Thinker likes to make decisions based on reason. Doesn't everyone? My son, Jacob, is an off the charts F. A Feeler makes decisions based on how they feel. For me, it has to make sense; for him, it has to feel right. His "feels right" decision making was not helped by being a teenage boy... just sayin.

After a heated exchange over a Winter Formal, he couldn't pay for, with some girl he didn't know, I went seeking some counsel. Thank God for Dave and Kelly Sasaki! They took turns patiently breaking it down for me and sent me off with a plan. It was grace.

In the aftermath, as I tried to make sense of it, a big take away for me was the realization that my ability to perceive reality was badly limited. That's a fact.

The image I got was people looking at a spectrum of colors. It was as if for the first time someone turned to me and said, "Hate to break it to you bro, but you're colorblind." I could see some of the bars on the spectrum, mostly shades of black and white, while Jacob could see a bunch of others - pink, yellow, green, orange.

Here's the payoff: The problem wasn't that I was colorblind; the problem was my belief that I could see it all. Immediately upon realizing that I could not, Jacob's perspective - no longer wrong based on its divergence from mine - became one I needed. Humility (blindness) led us to trust. And trust has gained for both of us a vision of a fuller spectrum of colors. I need Jacob, and he needs me. Community.

You might wonder, "If based on need, how's this then not self-serving?" Community for me and Community because it is not good for any of us to be alone couldn't be more different.