Tribe

The new theme for the CC writers is “Finding Community”–what our community/relationships look like, and how it compares to our church experiences.  As usual, I’m going first.

In my frequent compulsive ramblings on the Interwebs, I’ve often commented that it is natural for believers in Jesus to seek out community with each other–which is why I don’t make such a big deal about Christians who are in-between communities.

But I think I need to take it a little farther, because I don’t think the need for community is just about Christ-followers.  I think it’s inherent in mankind.  I think we all tend to seek out others like ourselves, because we desire that sense of belonging.  At heart, we are tribal, and we are looking for our tribe.  We are looking for that place where we belong.

We first see the sign of our need for others, I think, with God’s statement about Adam in Genesis: “It is not good for the man to be alone.”  And it is interesting that God didn’t resolve that “alone-ness” by creating another Adam, an identical twin.  He created woman, a human being who was like Adam, and also in the image of God–but definitely different.  God put the essential seeds of healthy community within the man/woman relationship–two people who were different, yet somehow the same.  It’s not actually healthy when everyone in a community thinks/believes/acts exactly the same way; it’s better if there is some diversity.  And yet–there has to be a common thread of belonging, a glue that makes us stick together.  That makes us a tribe.

I’m thinking a lot about this idea of tribe these days, both as I continue deconstructing from institutional Christianity and as I find my feet in a new land.  I’ve experienced community in numerous ways in my life, both in and out of church settings.  I still value community.  But this is a part of my new outside-the-walls experience that I don’t have yet resolved.  I have a lot of friends, but there isn’t a place yet where I just know I belong.  I feel the deep need for community, and know that community must be possible, but I’ve not yet found my tribe here.

Most fellow-believers find community in their local churches, which I obviously don’t relate to in the same way anymore.  I am helping some friends with worship at their local church until the end of the year, and while I value the friendships I’ve made there, I feel an increasing sense of sorrow at my pending departure.  Not because I want to stay, but because I see how these people belong together, and I know in my heart that I can’t belong.  They are my brethren, but that form of worship is not my tribe–not anymore. In fact, I have to admit to some resentment, not directly at this particular church, but at the whole setup.  There’s so much about institutional Christianity that has nothing to do with the Bible OR with community, and yet there are whole groups of people like me who feel exiled, so to speak, simply because we cannot accept the false with the true. I feel like this SHOULD be my tribe, but the institution just plain gets in the way of it.  So I wander in my heart, still looking for my tribe–my place to belong.

I think this deep need is fueling my family’s desire for creative community in a missional setting–a vision I’ve talked about here before.  I know for me, the two times in my life when I most felt I belonged somewhere, it was in a group of creative/artistic people.  At no other time in my life–not even in church groups–have I truly felt I had found my tribe than in those two instances.  There’s something in me that has wanted to re-create that connection ever since, and I think for me it’s a God thing.  But I’m still in that in-between place.  Even with the friendships that I’ve formed in the creative community here, it takes time sometimes to actually feel like you’re part of it.

I don’t have any real conclusions here, except to say I know community is a huge part of our walk of faith, if for no other reason than we all need a tribe.  And so I do not believe it should be the ultimate goal for people to exit organized Chrisitianity just to wander the wilderness alone forever.  It’s where I am now, and it’s how I feel–and it aches–but I know one day I will once again find my tribe.

Or that my tribe will find me.