Sunday was our Question Box Sunday, where members submit questions and the ministers answer them on the fly. The questions I receive are always impressive, but I think y’all outdid yourself this year. So many good ones, we couldn’t address them all. No problem, you’ve given me great fodder for my newsletter columns!

Here’s one, on a topic I’ve been thinking about since our service on the Anti-social Century:

What’s the most important thing you’ve learned about how to build a healthy community?

Perhaps paradoxically, I think the most crucial issue is responsibility for self. In order to be a supportive part of a healthy community, we have to take responsibility for our feelings, our wants and needs, and what we say and how we act.

Taking responsibility for self doesn’t mean we keep it to ourselves, nor does it mean we are responsible for fulfilling all of our needs. But we do get clear about what is within our control, and what is not.

If Jane Doe, Live Oak member, feels lonely, it is within her control to first identify that feeling, and then do something about it. Invite someone to lunch, go to a Book Club meeting, come to church, join an activity. If she’s going into the hospital and worried about how her family is going to fare without her, she doesn’t have to face that alone. She needs to take responsibility for self by reaching out, contacting the pastoral care committee, and letting them know what kind of help she would welcome.

And taking responsibility for self includes the care we give others, too. Home teams care for all of our members by giving everyone a Sabbath. And we take turns. So you get a Sabbath this Sunday, while others take care of making the coffee, serving as ushers, staffing the visitor table. And next week, this week’s team gets a Sabbath when your team serves. As individuals, we take responsibility by choosing where we will give our time and energy.

I ran across a quote recently. It’s one of those with no clear originator, repeated and paraphrased many times: “Being annoyed is the price you pay for community.”

Whaaaat?

But if we’re honest, it’s true, isn’t it? Sometimes, we’d rather just veg out on the couch than go to that committee meeting. Be alone rather than listen to opinions we may not agree with. Heck, sometimes just putting on shoes and socks to leave the house is annoying. But as someone else wrote, “and loneliness is the price you pay for a life of convenience.” 

(By the way, loneliness and the challenges of community are world-wide issues. One of the good articles I found on this topic of annoyance/community came from Australia.)

I do believe that Live Oak is a healthy community, and I think the number one factor is that the individuals in this community take responsibility for being so.