Welcome! I wrote a bit on Tuesday about my struggles with motherhood and how I wish I'd entered into it with more reasonable expectations and better support.
I've been reflecting a lot on community recently, and specifically have been lamenting that my conservative Christian upbringing left me incredibly disconnected from larger community.
For people who claim to be staunch believers in family and community, conservative Christians have a strong tendency to alienate people both within and outside of their own families and communities.
I've mentioned before that this kind of ideology creates shallow relationships and invites abuse, and it also draws a definitive line between “Us vs. Them.” While on the surface there may be some charity work and engagement with the larger community, beneath that is the constant reminder that you and everyone else are either “holy” or not.
The harsh focus on sin, the message of being “in the world but not of it,” and constant talk about being negatively influenced by secular culture made me afraid to trust or become closer to other people. Those within the community felt unsafe because I felt I wasn't “good” enough, and those outside of it felt unsafe because they might negatively influence me.
This line was drawn even more starkly with the added layer of politics. For example, I was discouraged from going to a liberal arts college or university for fear that it would “turn me liberal” (spoiler alert: it kinda did, but not for the reasons they thought).
It was incredibly difficult not having much of a support network outside of my immediate family as I left for college, and it left me ill-equipped for the outside world. Coupled with my then-unrealized neurodivergence, I felt extremely confident about my ability to remain a conservative Christian through college, and extremely unprepared for everything else.
I latched onto the connections I could find at school, wanting to feel some sense of belonging. While I was terrible at proselytizing, I quietly hoped perhaps I could be a “good influence” on the people I befriended (it gives me the ick to remember the way I thought about some of the people whose friendships I have since come to value so deeply, but there it is).
The thing is, being in proximity to a variety of people with a variety of perspectives and experiences did something that arguments on the internet never did. It humanized them for me. It gave me gentle permission to ask myself if, maybe, I had gotten some things wrong.
In the years since my deconstruction, and since realizing my queerness and neurodivergence, I've made many more genuine connections - for which I'm so grateful - but even now, I feel such an ache for community, especially since becoming the stay-at-home parent of two during a pandemic.
I know that my situation is not unique, and I think that there's a clear connection between the nature of conservative Christianity and capitalism, both of which largely encourage individualism, churning out more and more loyal worker drones, protecting your own family and assets, and providing bandaid fixes (like charity work) over lasting systemic solutions.
I've found myself longing, more and more, to find ways to operate outside of capitalism, and to connect with sustainable community systems both locally and globally. Obviously, this is easier said than done, and I feel like I still have so much to learn, but having a goal post of some kind makes me feel a bit less overwhelmed and gives me hope.
Have you been on this journey as well? I'd love to hear how you're connecting with community and sustainability.
If this post resonated with you, please feel free to share.
A. I find these lines powerful! "The thing is, being in proximity to a variety of people with a variety of perspectives and experiences did something that arguments on the internet never did. It humanized them for me. It gave me gentle permission to ask myself if, maybe, I had gotten some things wrong."
Individualized polarization is the illness of today. And it is killing true community. I love that instead of the arguments, the meeting of people with other ideas "humanized" them. Very sweet and tender. This realization that we all come to our understandings based on our diverse and varied life experiences.. Each perspective added together creating a fuller picture. All of the colors from the artists pallet painting this masterpiece of life.
I didn’t grow up in a church, but I had a mother who I only remember having one friend outside of our family for most of my life. I did not grow up with many social skills. I became a Christian at 19 and found community there that felt really good at the time, until I started to question the theology it was assumed every Christian believed. My family can ‘fit in’ to those communities, but we don’t belong anymore, and I so long for what you’re talking about as a stay at home parent.
I recently chatted with a woman at our progressive church about starting some experiments in community -- opening up the space to just be together, a time that’s the same every week, and not turning it into a program. If you’re there, you help set up chairs and brings snacks and games. If you’re there, you’re not serving others -- it’s a mutual relationship. We haven’t started yet, but I hope it will be a place where organic community, whether a person goes to church or not, can thrive and even be multi-generational. I’d love to do all-ages open mics, game nights, play times for parents with littles. I have so many thoughts about it, and I have decided that I just maybe had to be the one to do it, even if it fails. I can’t wait around for community anymore.