I've been thinking a lot lately about community; probably a good thing since I live here. Intentional community is a struggle to live out, but I think the more difficult thing is trying to explain it to an outside who's never experienced it.
Example 1: I got offered some tickets to a Green Bay Packers game back in October. Note: The Packers are my favorite team, and the tickets were offered by a fellow Catholic Worker at the Dubuque New Hope Farm. The game was supposed to be this weekend. I eventually had to turn the tickets down because the court trial for our July Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield action was this past week. Consequently, back in October we weren't sure what would really be going on this weekend.
I'd tried to convince my community members to let me be gone for 48 hours, and they were all "Ok" with it, but not super on board. It felt sort of like Sunday basketball practice for the high school team: not "required," but if you aren't there, you probably won't play at Tuesday's game. You know--while my presence wasn't necessarily needed those 48 hours, it was more of a "how committed are you to this whole place" thing. And I knew, immediately after I'd been offered the tickets, that I shouldn't go. It's a flaky, irresponsible thing for me to do. But, I'm a human, and I really, really wanted to go.
So, after I turned the tickets down I told my mom that I'd done so. She was really disappointed, because she knew I really wanted to go, and, because she's a great mom, really wanted me to be able to go. I told her that it had turned into a much bigger thing than simply a football game--it felt, at least to me, like a judgment on my commitment to the movement as a whole.
Her response? "Well, if that's what it's turned into, is this really something you want to be that committed to? That you can't go to a once-in-a-lifetime professional football game?" She raised a good point. People outside of this place don't understand why this would even be an issue. To be honest, some people outside of this community, but still in the Catholic Worker movement, couldn't understand why it was such a big deal.
So, Question #1: How committed should one be? Yes, this is my life, but what sacrifices do I have to make for it? Should I be making sacrifices at all? What's a sacrifice? Should I feel obligations or coercions, or be made to feel like I'm a lousy community member, because I can't commit my entire life to this, and I can't deny that I want to be a normal citizen and go to a football game instead of mop the floor?
Thankfully, I was able to go to the game, so any hard feelings that I had towards my community members have been forgiven. I still don't know what the right answer is. I don't know how to focus my life around this and still have a life outside of this. Or, maybe I shouldn't have a life outside of this.
That brings me to the second half of my blog. Being it that I went to school around Des Moines and lived very close to here before I moved in, I have a lot of friends outside of this house. I do a lot of socializing, I'll admit it. I like my friends, they're an important part of my life, and I classify at least some of my socializing as Catholic Worker work, because it in itself is a ministry.
However, I have noticed at times that my social life does get in the way of my life here. And I know that I should, and most of the times do, choose this life over being with my friends. Luckily, usually I'm able to do both, because this house offers me a lot of leverage to live my own life, thankfully. However, this brings me back to my first question: should I have to choose one over the other? And if I do have to choose, how do I choose? What do I want to be committed to?
The professional world says to be committed to your work above your relationships. I'm not entirely convinced that's right.
The beautiful thing is that the Catholic Worker life is work and relationships, so generally there wouldn't be that tension. I, however, still have the tension because I have a lot of relationships outside of here, in addition to my relationships within this community.
It's a hard balancing act that I've found myself in. It makes it difficult for me to focus on this life. If I were to move to a CW farm or a different house, I'd be more committed to it because I wouldn't have other things outside of there pulling me away.
Don't get me wrong--I love my life. But I also know that, at least for a while, I'd like to live a somewhat "isolated" life, in community with others doing the work of the Lord. And by "isolated" I mean isolated from social obligations outside of my community. Focus on my work. Focus on my internal relationships. Focus on the Lord.
:::focus.
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