Building Beloved Community

By Pastor Peter Hanson
​
Each One of Us is Space
A poem by Ben Weaver
 
When building community,
how do we make certain
not to forget that a community
is made up of communities?
What are the concepts
that unite worlds?
What are the tools
we will use to express,
share and remember
our interconnectivity?
How will we nurture relationships through abundance
rather than debt?
How do we turn our gifts
into stories that remind us
what we want to keep alive,
helping us break
more spells than we cast?
Even if the end of the world
looks just like today,
how could we quit,
when everything else keeps growing?
 
My friend Jodi shared this poem with me, just as I was contemplating our second core value of “Building Community.” As it turns out, this coincided with getting ready for this week’s return to in-person worship in the CtK sanctuary. Particularly when I think about us re-gathering as a worshipping community after more than a year apart, I found its simple imagery very helpful in allowing me to reimagine what it means to congregate, to assemble, to meet together in one place.
 
This community that we are building bridges different groupings which claim us and links a variety of identities that we recognize in ourselves. What connects us to one another at Christ the King? How do we put words to what unites us? How do we express beyond words the longing so many of us have felt these past months just to BE together again? Do we have eyes to see and ears to hear the many ways God calls us to be a whole that is greater than the sum of our parts?
 
We’ll have to keep our masks on for worship—for now, for a while, not forever—and we’ll do our best to keep our distance for a bit longer, too. What if we imagined the space that remains between us as a place of abundant gifted-ness, a place to nurture growth, a place to create new stories? What if we let the masks remind us that the precious and life-giving Spirit of the Living God is as close to us as our own breath?

This past year has been challenging for many reasons, not least of which because we’ve had to be apart for so much of it. I am convinced, however, that our community has been growing all this time. We’ve grown by pivoting, innovating, and making do. We’ve also grown by grieving, letting go, and getting by. God will continue to build beloved community among us. God will continue to be with us: in spirit, in truth, in person, and online.