I recently watched two very different movies that both reminded me of how much we all need community. “A Man Called Otto” is about a suicidal widower whose life is ultimately saved by neighbors being neighborly, but not in the way you might assume. “Tag” is based on the true story of a group of adult men who have continued playing a serious game of tag since high school for decades.
Community life. Most of us have had some sort of experiences of living in a community setting. Whether it was dorm life, living with roommates, or at the most basic level living with our family. There is a difference, however, between merely living in a community and living in an intentional community. It’s the difference of merely living adjacent to other people or living with other people. I’ve been blessed to live in multiple intentional communities. Working at summer camp for 10 summers was a huge lesson in what it means to live with others. Living in Honduras with 5 other international ‘brothers and sisters of community’ with Con-solatio, and then living near Gonzaga with a Con-solatio student house for 3 years were even more transformative years in the journey of community living. During my orientation with Con-solatio I was taught that living in community would be the most difficult part of my year, as well as, the most meaningful part of my year. More difficult than living in poverty, of watching people suffer horrible injustices, of being far away from home and not speaking the language?? Yes, more difficult than all these. Living with others is a lesson in humility and vulnerability. I can only show my best side for so long. Very quickly I have to admit that maybe I’m not as patient, cheerful, easy-going, fill-in-the blank, as I think I am…after all it’s easy to be those things when no one is close enough to test my patience, deflate my good mood or mess up my plans. When I can time my encounters with others just right, I can give them the quick highlights and updates that I want to show them, but they won’t be seeing me when I am tired, or sick, or stressed or just plain grumpy. Community life interrupts our idealized world and idealized self with its very abrupt reality. It can be very tempting to hide or run away. I am naturally conflict averse. My internal peace is very important to me and when that feels threatened my first instinct is to run, to retreat into my internal world where I try to pretend others can’t bother me. I am pretty disturbed by the trend I see to cut “toxic” people out of your life. Boundaries are incredibly important. Cutting abusive people out of your life is absolutely necessary. But “toxic” is too loosely defined in many situations. If I start cutting out all the people who are irritating, draining, or otherwise offensive to me….well I’m missing out on a lot of opportunities to learn forgiveness, humility and a whole host of other virtues that make life worth living.
In “A Man Called Otto,” a lonely, grieving widower attempts suicide multiple times. Each time, however, he is saved by someone being a burden to him. One new neighbor in particular is not put off by his gruff and rude demeanor and continues to ask, even demand, help from him. In exchange, she brings him food, an important detail. I was struck that he was NOT saved by being told how important he was, being praised for being a contributing member of society, or by not feeling like a burden himself. He was saved by very little, very annoying interruptions- not being able to parallel park their moving trailer, needing to borrow a wrench and then a ladder, needing a ride to the hospital. Each time he is reluctant to help and very irritated by the number of ‘idiots’ in the world, but each time he allows the interruption to pause him momentarily. As we continue to learn more about him, we find out that he let a long friendship with his old neighbor die over differences in opinion over car makes and models. Our first reaction is how ridiculous, why would someone lose a friendship over that? Yet, if I’m honest, I’ve known friendships that have disintegrated for much less. The new neighbor has confidence in her vulnerability. She knows she needs other people and she is not afraid to ask for help. No one in the movie is overly compassionate or saintly, there are no heroes in the typical sense, but the honesty of the neighbor’s neediness allows the neighborhood to be open to their own neediness and recognize the depth of friendship that can exist because of that.
In “Tag” the directors decided to go for comedy over the true story, but I was much more intrigued by the real story. The real story started at our local Catholic high school. A group of 10 boys would play tag through the hallways…when they were supposed to be at study hall or attending Mass. They graduated and moved all over the U.S. getting jobs, one as a teacher, another a lawyer, one even became a priest. The distance couldn’t squander their friendship, however. On a certain reunion they decided to bring back their game of tag. The lawyer wrote up the simple rules of their old, yet new game and it has continued through 4 decades and is still going strong. The friends have been tagged at weddings, funerals, their workplace, no where is off limits. In one interview they reflect on the uniqueness of the deep friendships they share. They explain the fun of their game is really just their excuse to maintain their friendship, to not let distance, lifestyle changes etc. lessen the bonds they share. When a Wall Street Journal reporter was first passed their story, she did not think there was a real story there. However, she was blown away by the response of her article on these 10 grown men who still play tag. She says, people overwhelmingly “wanted in.” I am touched by their story myself and I’m sure the overwhelming response to the story demonstrates the longing we all have to have a community that spans the decades, that overcomes changes, that truly knows us and that doesn’t let that knowing fracture the friendship.
Community has to be worked for. Friendships have to be fought for. I could be romanticizing prior generations, but I think communities and lasting friendships used to be more of a given. Now, not only are they definitely not a given, they are actually quite hard to sustain. Growing up in my small town, people had to work through their disagreements and irritations with each other- because if they didn’t they were bound to run into each other again. Now, it is so easy to let a friendship fade when it starts to become burdensome, irritating or offensive. Our lives are so busy, but if we are too busy for a game of tag with lifelong friends, we are definitely too busy.