The Exhausting, Necessary Emphasis on Community

On hours in the car spent driving to other peoples' houses, extra church services, and on time spent filling our homes with moments of focused community.

“apple cider” by Loré Pemberton (available here)

One of the concepts that I have been most fascinated by throughout my entire life is that of community, fellowship, and friendship. All of my favorite books wrestle with that theme, and a lot of the things I most love to do revolve around cultivating community. My house, growing up, had nearly a revolving door of guests and visitors, whether they stopped by for minutes, meals, or overnight stays. In 2020, I was, like many others, entirely windswept by Covid, and by the loss of community that came with it. It grew and grew in my mind until I began writing a larger piece of creative nonfiction about community and our physical and emotional need for it.

As is often the case with a work in progress, this concept has haunted my mind ever since, and I have begun contemplating all of the aspects of my life through the lens of community. This is especially important to me now as a mother, because establishing a rich sense of community for my children, with the opportunity for deep, lifelong friendship, is one of my biggest goals as I structure their lives. I do not claim to be an expert, as my children are nearly two, and not yet born, respectively, but I did want to share a few of the ways that I have and will continue to prioritize community in our family.

All community begins at home. John and I often find ourselves reevaluating our home life, trying to find better ways to prioritize faith and family in our time together. I’ve written before about how I try to create a sense of home and community visually in our home, so I won’t focus on that here. Our most consistent moments of community and fellowship as a family at home are suppertime and our bedtime devotions.

Klaus truly loves supper because both of his parents are present, and we get to sit and talk and eat together. Often, we try to play music while we eat (his current favorite is the Brandenburg Concertos), and thanks to John we often have a vase of flowers on the table. When we remember, we try to light candles as well, to make our meals feel special and significant, even if what we are eating is leftover from lunch, or overly simplistic in nature.

As it is now cold outside, I’ve begun baking sourdough again, and Klaus and I are trying to bake treats for us to have after supper and as a snack after nap. This afternoon, we’ll be making apple pie. His godmother Rachel, who runs a microbakery from her home, recently spoke on a podcast about how food is central to community, and her home is probably the home I take the most inspiration from when it comes to meals. It is true that we open up more over a good meal. We feel the most comfortable together when we are enjoying something that tastes good and fills us up, and it is often over meals that we are most filled up mentally as well, through good conversation.

I have tried to prioritize this kind of community whenever it is offered to us: last week, we had the joy of attending an All Saints Day soup feast hosted by dear friends from church. John stays late after work to go to book discussions with his friends over a glass of beer at a brewery. Every quarter or so, John and I attend a wine tasting with friends where our cups are both literally and figuratively filled by the community we find there. If we are invited to visit someone for dinner, it is one of the things I most prioritize when making our monthly schedule.

This is reflected slightly less in our own home life. Although one of the main reasons we bought our farm was for the hosting opportunities it presented, the reality is that we live far enough away to make it difficult to host people in our own home. This is the thing I would most like to change for the sake of our children, because I want them to grow up with a full table, and to love and enjoy hosting, as I loved having company as a child myself. For now, our community at table is us coming together as a family to eat, to reflect on our days, and talk about whatever is on our mind.

The other communal moment we have every day is our bedtime devotions, and this is actually Klaus’s favorite part of every day. He gets really excited to see us get the hymnals out, and he sits patiently on the couch, waiting for us to pick a hymn and begin our prayers. We currently work through The Prayer for the Close of the Day, (pg. 298 in the LSB) every night, and sing a hymn along with it. This is such a joy to him because when we do devotions, we are fully focused on one thing together. We bow our heads, cross our chests, and say Amen in unison. We sing together, and are focused only on that time together. There are no distractions, and he loves it.

We just received our All the Household 2024-2025 liturgical calendar, and I am excited to introduce more moments of focused time celebrating the church year into Klaus’s life. He’s now old enough that he can help with baking, and can participate actively in any feast days we decide to celebrate. Our first will, of course, will be his name day on December 6th (St. Nicholas Day). It’s a wonderful way to incorporate traditions and our faith into our family life and our community. My goal is to have each of my children have a saint day, most likely their name day, that they are ‘in charge of’ each year. Klaus will get to help plan our celebrations and incorporate ways to involve his friends, cousins, and siblings in the observation of that feast day.

Finally, I have always tried to prioritize keeping up with my friends. I try to call them regularly, or at least text them, and to keep up with the blessings and stresses of their lives. This looks different at every phase of our individual lives, and based on whether we live near or far away. This fall, we got to visit my best friend in Michigan, and some of John’s best friends in Indiana, as well as Klaus’ godparents, whose children are some of Klaus’s favorite people in the world. We have made lots of trips to Hannah’s to visit Klaus’s cousins, and we get to see his other set of cousins over Thanksgiving. It is easy to see all the driving, scheduling, and planning as a chore, when in reality it is a blessing I can give to each member of our family, who needs the opportunity to see family and friends and be replenished by them.

Emphasizing community, fellowship, and friends is in many ways a sacrifice we make. It is easier to stay home, to turn down invitations, to lose touch with others, because of the sheer effort it takes to be present. However, our lives are so much richer when we prioritize meaningful connection whenever we can, with the people and communities in our lives that refill our cup, and whose cup is refilled by us.