hiding from church

i hate going to church by myself. i hadn't been in awhile on sunday morning but i went last week with a friend whose husband was out of town. i felt a little like i was being zinged by god. the topic was wired: being connected to community.

it felt like a zinger in that i'm wrestling with losses of community. being single, community feels especially important and currently, my community bases seem to be in flux.

• my small group basically broke apart last fall. i'm still friends with everyone, but we don't see each other reguarly and the sense that we are doing life together is completely gone.
• my cfdm class ended with graduation last december. what i thought was going to be a class became a community. i knew it was seasonal, but it came to end at a time where the rest of my communities seem to be ending as well.
  
• my oklahoma connection is a tad more disjointed. one of us has moved back, the remainder of us are spread out around the county and we used to live fairly close together. as a result, we spend less time together outside the office.
• i met reguarly with a couple of women. we connected on a deeper level and really shared what was going on with us. this has become sporadic at best. we're still friends, but we're far less intentional.
• the junior high ministry staff used to be close, but we aren't as close anymore. there've been a lot of transitions and the new team hasn't gelled yet.

i do have one new community that is developing, shades of purple. it's a group of women who come together to share their faith journey and explore feminity and spiritual formation. i know that communities transition and that new ones will come to replace the old ones. but for the moment, i'm in the tender in between space that leaves me feeling adrift among a bit of grief. it's okay for me to grieve these losses of community--the hardest part is the feelings of loneliness that come with these losses. consequently, i find myself hiding from church. i'm not feeling brave enough today to face another possible zinger.