Remembering Communities

As we walk our own path, we step in and out of so many different communities.  Some become a part of our lives for extended periods of time and others pass from view as quickly as the leaves which fall from trees in the fall.  I often think about some of the communities which have touched my life and continue to exist in a place other than here.  To remember them is to remember faces, acts of kindness mutually offered, and experiences shared.  And while my vision of those communities is colored by the past, I know they go on and on in the present moment with the folks I knew then still living within them.

 

To remember is to call the names without uttering a sound.  Remembering those communities from the past has become a ritual of blessing.  The existence of those communities did not depend on me and they continue without my presence.  I wonder sometimes how some of the people who are a part of this past of mine are faring.  Did the guy who drove the shuttle for us while we stayed in a distant city for an extended time ever make it to the college graduation of which he often spoke?  I wonder if the child I knew long ago who is now a woman with children of her own managed to buy and live in her home place.  From time to time I call an older guy who came to know Christ when we were young just to know if he still speaks of faith in Christ. 

 

So many folks touch our lives.  So many lives are touched by each one of us.  Every where we have gone and everywhere we go, we move in and out of communities of people who are important to us in the present and continue to be important long after the present has disappeared.  In many ways the Scripture is the divine story of people living in community with one another and with God.  We can be thankful that so many of these sacred groups have shaped our lives and connected us to one another in an unbreakable way.