While at a friend's house, I saw a copy of the first thing I ever wrote and read aloud in front of church, when I was fifteen years old. My involvement in the creation of that youth-lead service, which took place on March 30, 2003, was my first taste of the worship-leading experience that lead me to become a worship associate at age seventeen. Moreover, the words in this old piece I wrote had echoes throughout my later preaching experience, and were repeated and elaborated in the sermon I gave during my worship associate year.
Then, as now, my words inspired a torrent of approval and encouragement from the congregation which I have never been sure how to react to. Then, as now, my reaction to the flood of compliments was "Yes, but do you understand?" I touched on that confusion in my sermon, which I may post here later. First, here is the unedited reading from my mind, my mouth, and my life four years ago:
Your community are the people who surround you, and the people you surround. They are friends, coworkers, and strangers. They are your enemies, and the people you wish you weren't associated with. The community forms a vast spider web that holds each of its members up, and each person is a thread.
But, as important as community is, it is equally important to keep one's individuality, to separate from the crowd in order to find a personal balance.
When I first offered to write this reading about connecting with people, I thought it would be easy. After all, who knows better than I the joy of finding friendship after a lifetime of loneliness? And I was more than willing to show the congregation – and the world – how I felt.
But words proved insufficient to describe this feeling. After several failed attempts, I gave up on my original approach – which was to tell my own story from beginning to end – and wrote this.
This service is about balance, a concept I believe in wholeheartedly. It's equilibrium between two opposites, where neither is more significant or more powerful than the other. It applies to so many aspects of our lives, and yet we often forget its importance.
It even applies to the amount of time and effort we spend on our social lives. If you neglect your duties to the community by hiding away from the world, you will starve and die of loneliness. But if you constantly surround yourself with people, whether it be a few close friends or millions of strangers, you will forget about yourself and lose sight of your own goals.
As for me, I spent my whole life starving for connection. I was so alone that I forgot that other people existed, and thought I could curl up and ignore the world and still live a normal life.
But when I finally figured out that I needed friends to survive, I overdid it. I would work so hard on building and maintaining relationships that they nearly suffocated me. I had no time or energy, after socializing, to pursue my own personal goals or develop any kind of personality.
But how can one be social and still retain his or her sense of self? How can one keep the balance from tipping?
I once read an excellent metaphor involving a hand submerged in water. The water completely surrounds the hand, embraces it, some might say loves it. But when the hand is removed from the water, the water lets it go – it doesn't cling possessively to it, or tear off part of the hand to keep as its own.
The key to keeping the balance, I think, is to be like water: to love and trust others completely and easily, and to leave them just as easily. Spend some time alone, without worrying about other people, and then return joyfully to their embrace when the time comes to be social.
I have been told that saying these things, my personal thoughts and experiences, in front of everyone here, would be hard for me. But it isn't, because I know that the more I share, the more I will get back, and that I will have more to share after that. Only be showing myself as I really am, by sharing my story, can I help the community and so help myself.
I did not know that a few years ago, but I know it now.
