The first doorbell rang at about 4:30. I was down in our basement (which is where my office is) and my first instinct was not to walk up to start handing out candy, but, instead, to see if perhaps there was a trapdoor I was unfamiliar with that would lead to a hiding place where I could set up shop for the next three hours.
Halloween isn’t my favorite holiday and our neighborhood is very popular with the trick-or-treaters so there are masses of people who come by (my wife counted more than 850 pieces of candy that we handed out). I tend toward introversion so you can perhaps guess why my instinct was to hide.
Sometimes that goes too far, however. I get too comfortable with being by myself and that limits my opportunities with others. One of the reasons I love Jesus is because he was a master at the balance at being with people while also being alone. He knew the value of both.
There are lots of studies about the values of being in community and having strong social relationships (one study found that people who had lousy health habits but strong social connections lived significantly longer than those who had good health habits but were isolated). As people of faith, we have plenty of models for the need to be connected to each other. We cannot do this journey alone. But this isn’t always easy. I can’t imagine too many people who like to be lonely (which is different than being alone) and it’s even harder to admit that you’re lonely. A telling quote from Jacqueline Olds, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard: “I have found that people are quite willing to say that they have a psychiatric problem but not that they are lonely. In the U.S., there is a stigma about loneliness because our culture romanticizes self-reliance.”
One of our core practices at Urban Village is to gather, to be connected, to be in community. That always sounds great, but it’s much harder to put into practice. It takes courage to start and build new relationships. We believe, however, that this practice illuminates a person’s faith life.
After I stopped looking for the trapdoor on Wednesday, I eventually went out with the masses as I walked with my son and some of his friends (and their parents) going door-to-door. Slowly but surely, (literally) rubbing elbows with people rubbed off on me and gave me a new appreciation for my neighbors. I have to push myself a bit to engage (and am often tired afterward), but I’m almost always grateful for doing it. May we as a community stretch ourselves in the same way!