7/21/25 Is it just me or the more mature we become; we genuinely aren’t that interested in connecting with new people? I mean, life is super busy, we’ve got jobs, houses, bills, kids, existing relationships, some days it all seems too much! The reality though is that we can’t live in our own personal bubble, no matter how safe we feel there! We are called to live in Community but if you’re like me, some days are heavy enough without trying to live in or take on (emotionally) anyone else’s baggage, right?! Once you know me better, you’ll know that when I ask a question like that, in my head, it’s usually buuuuuuuuttt……so here’s the “but”: I’ve recently discovered, after trying to support someone solo in a relationship for over 10 years, that it’s EXHAUSTING! He has bi-polar, a TBI and 3 weeks ago, he had a vertebral stroke, leaving him with left side weakness and a long road to recovery in front of him. If I thought I was tired before, trying to be “his person” and in the lonely position of being pretty much his sole cheerleader, sparring partner, companion and caretaker before, that would be nothing now post stroke if I didn’t contact reinforcements! Currently in the process of forming a village. These are two things that are a bit out of my comfort zone: asking for help and approaching people who I may not necessarily know well, if at all. It’s humbling, it’s daunting, it’s a labor of love and it’s so very necessary!! If I only had me to talk to and me to encourage, I’d slowly go mad, this poor man, LOL! In all seriousness, he needs a village and so do I….trying to juggle the responsibilities of a full time job, my own home, bills, dogs and my adult daughter that still lives with me and visit him, help him make decisions, deal with medication mix-ups and delays and my own emotions over seeing him like this without the help of anyone else would probably mean I’d end up in the hospital sick myself! The art of connection is much easier as little kids, but we can get really jaded and scarred over the years and it’s simply not that easy to connect with others, especially if it involves asking for help, we’ve become a “self-reliant” mindset society of “I can do it myself”. These days, we’re more apt to network for business reasons than we are interested in building or forging new interpersonal relationships. Reflecting on this lately, it made me wonder why we’re so willing to grow our employer’s business and not our own village? As Christians, we are the Church and that should mean more than sitting near each other for services when we attend in person. Another point I’d really like to hit while discussing the “art of connection” as it relates to “being the church” is this: Rhetoric and symbolism aside, “being the church” is not about preaching the gospel, in my opinion, it’s not about quoting scripture and verse or symbolism, it’s about showing up for each other. It’s about being Christ like in your love for others, in your kindness for others, it’s showing your faith, your love for Christ, it’s living in community and “being the church” in what you do and say, being present and doing life together! No matter what we’ve got going on, there’s always time to come up alongside someone and do life!