Low Momentum

The day I wrote the first blog post I had a thousand ideas going through my head about what to write and do. But then, as so often happens, "life got in the way." Or, more specifically, I got busy. I am in a play right now (Picasso at the Lapin Agile with Middletown Lyric Theater) which means I do have a creative outlet.

The play and rehearsals are going well but I'll admit I don't get as much out of the experience as I once did. I think the primary reason is that the last few plays I've been in have lacked the kind of cast bonding I'd grown to rely on for my social outlet. When I was first involved in community theater there was something compelling about the group working to produce the play. The cast and crew would form an almost family bond. This was as true of the small shows (3-5 people) as of the large ones (over 100). When I think back on them, I am reminded of the Catholic Church's description of a sacrament as an outward sign of an inward change. The play was a tangible outward sign of an inward change that this group of people had undergone together. This inward change was, for want of a less cliche term, the formation of a community.

And, at the heart of it, that is what I feel is missing from my spiritual life: community. I have come to find that what religion really provides us is not so much a sense of purpose or an answer to the "universal questions" but a belonging to a community. The resurgence of religion in America, especially the non-denominational variety, is likely not an answer to our sense of fear or a backlash against our materialistic society as a response to our abandonment of community. Nearly all of the institutions that were the outward sign of the American Sacrament of Community have either been torn down from without or within. Couple that with our ever growing drive to be productive at work and micro-manage the raising of our children and we find ourselves thirsting to be part of something that was, in other times, a pervasive part of the human experience. And so we flock in droves to mega churches in the belief that Belief is is what we lack.

I'm reminded of the quote by the character Lewis Rothschild in the movie The American President. To paraphrase: "People want community, and in the absence of genuine community, they'll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want community. They're so thirsty for it they'll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there's no water, they'll drink the sand."

Well, since I refuse to drink the sand, I'm still crawling.