Spontaneous Community.

This might have to be a multi-part blog because this is one of my favorite thinsg in life. It is what I hope to see more of every day, it is what I strive to foster, and it guides the kind of person I aim to be.

Spontaneous community. I'm all for sustained community and I truly believe that development of spontaneous community best happens among those who are a part of established, sustained communities. Spontaneous community is what happens when the foundational understanding we have of community reaches beyond its own bounds and invites others (and ourselves) into a new existence.

When I was 16, I went to this huge hardcore Christian-ish music festival called Cornerstone. Spontaneous community happened there constantly. As you walked by each taped off camping square, people started speaking with you, sharing food with you, inviting you to sit on their "thinking couch" (which maybe looked a little grimy, but maybe that's where the best thoughts happen, so why not?). One of the days we were there, a couple of the teens in our group started clapping in different beats to the same rhythm. We walked along the dirt path, each of us clapping a different beat.

It wasn't long before total strangers got up and walked with us, adding more beats to the mix. The size of the group grew as we continued walking.  It was beautiful. It united us as perfect strangers - but as though we were more than just strangers. Anyone could join in and become a part of what we were doing. There was no rejection, no exclusion. There was not a single person who felt underutilized. Not a single person was striving to be the star. We were all a part of something bigger than ourselves; we all shared in the creation of something beautiful: A sound, a resonating rhythm that lived through us in that moment.

One time I was playing guitar out by myself at my favorite spot in my hometown, a little old gazebo out by a dock. I was strumming loudly and singing. A man on a bike came up to me. He had a name (which I know but will not disclose here) and he was without a home. He told me a bit about his story and asked if he could borrow my guitar. I handed it over and he played some Led Zeppelin for a while. Even taught me how to play a few chords.

At Whataburger at about 2:00 AM one late night, a group of friends and I sat at a table and played Scattergories. Some folks at the next table over asked what we were doing. We showed them the game and asked them to join us. They turned down our invite. But we surely would have liked it if they had joined.

Spontaneous community absolutely depends on one's ability to look beyond oneself. Not just that, but to look beyond those that you advertently care for. Seeing strangers. Seeing them truly and inviting them into something different than either you or him/her had been experiencing before. Spontaneous community depends not on our ability to invite people into our world, but on our willingness to forge a new world with another.

That connection cannot be made if we don't have eyes to see the Other. And the connection will always be shallow and disappointing if the Other is never given the ability to co-create, the ability to be more than "other". I hope that as I continue to get older, that my worldview and my willingness to step out of my world and comfort zone to create something new with another, doesn't diminish. I hope that I fight the inclination to do my own thing when I have the opportunity to join in something more whole that is bigger than me.

I hope others will be willing to take the risk, and that I would risk looking like a fool in hopes that such communities could exist even if only for a brief encounter, bringing hope and life that supercedes the moment, changing us all for the better.