Before I moved to Germany I was never a devoted fan of This American Life. I did really enjoy it when I happened to hear it, but I didn’t seek it out. In the past few months, though, it’s become one of the things I latch on to when my spirits are at their lowest. The show gives me something I’m not getting from face-to-face interactions in Germany. In a nutshell, it is for me a celebration of neuroticism. From the woman with no particular musical background who solicited (and got!) Phil Collins’s help in writing a break-up song because she thought it was the only way to heal, to the one who was consumed with the desire to bust city officials who were always parking illegally and getting away with it, to the man who somehow managed to be convinced that a snowman had bench-pressed however many pounds … these people are struggling, man, they’re weird and they’re vulnerable and they fail at things, and they share that and find humor in it and revel in it. I’m sure Germans are weird and neurotic, too, but I don’t often hear them talking or laughing about it. (Language barrier alert: as with everything that I say about how Germans are, this observation must be qualified by the important fact that I still miss a lot of what I hear.)
Which relates to something I’ve been thinking about lately: what is community made of? How is it constituted? I used to think that the only legitimate community was based on face-to-face interactions: if not with people in the present, than at least with people you used to know who now live elsewhere. But given that I just haven’t found many people here that I really connect with emotionally, despite a lot of effort; given that I can shoot the bull and cook meals with and go out drinking with people here 3-4 nights a week and still feel existentially alone, is it legitimate for me to look to a radio show for some sense of togetherness and belonging?
A few months ago I’d have said, “Sorry, but no.” I’d have said that it’s OK to listen to the radio if you really need it to feel better, but realize that it gives you nothing more than the illusion of belonging to tide you over until you go back home or meet people who really get you. But these days I’m feeling a tad less judgy about non-tangible communities. Because if communion is only what we observe with our 5 senses, plus what we make of that, I’m in trouble. ‘Cause even when I’m not studying abroad I spend a lot of time lamenting my lack of connection and feeling dissatisfied in various ways with the various communities I’m in: my church, my small group, my department, my roommates, my friends and my friends’ friends.
But I’m playing around with the idea that there is such a thing as mystical community. If you think about it, from a Christian perspective it actually makes sense. “I believe in …the communion of saints.” (Apostle’s Creed) That “great cloud of witnesses” surrounding us in Hebrews 12:1, which from the preceding passage is clearly people who are now deceased, is supposed to be a real encouragement. Is this encouragement supposed to come from the mere knowledge that people before us suffered, got through it and are now in paradise – and watching us to see what we’ll do? Or is there something more going on than bare mental assent, mere awareness of their existence?
I got this idea from James Finley, who, writes about the mystical community that meditating can open one’s eyes to. To illustrate his thesis that meditation is “the transformative process of shifting from surface, matter-of-fact levels of consciousness to more interior, meditative levels of awareness of the spiritual dimensions of our lives (Christian Meditation, p. 5),” he unpacks the idea that it makes us aware, not only of our unity with God, but also of our unity with all people who seek him, including ones we’ve never met.
A few weeks ago, my vaguely Christian dorm’s last chapel of the semester centered on Psalm 133, which celebrates how “good it and pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity; it is like …the precious oil… running down on the beard of Aaron.” This was followed by a commemoration of the previous semester, complete with anecdotes, farewell speeches, parting gifts, and even poetry written for the occasion. As I took all this in, I was dominated by two conflicting sets of emotions. On the surface, guilt and grief that I hadn’t participated more, that I still hadn’t found a niche in this dorm, that I’d only a few times experienced anything beyond a Maslowian need to survive in my social interactions here, as opposed to really enjoying them. That I’d never really felt seen by others or, just as importantly, seen them – that I hadn’t recognized or appreciated most of the individual characteristics and quirks that played such a prominent role in the night’s remembrances. And yet, deeper than that, I had this conviction that, despite the evidence to the contrary, these people here are my brothers and sisters, and the unity that we share is good. They may not get my jokes or dance with me at parties, and I still may not know beans about what made them want to become pastors or what motivates their spiritual life, but the fact that we all invoke the name of the Lord and stand around in a circle holding hands saying the prayer he taught us every Tuesday night – as rote as it sometimes seems on the surface – means that we are bound together in some spiritual sense. As superficial and flawed as I experience this community to be, I believed that Psalm 133 somehow applies.
To go back to This American Life, I can’t really justify the sense of belonging it gives me because there’s no ultimate theological truth on which it’s based. Still, given my new belief that community can’t only be reduced to empirically observed interactions, I’ll take that sense of belonging and be grateful.
