thinking about community again

this time it was Buechner that got me started:

"We don't like to get too serious about things, especially about ourselves. When we are with other people, we are apt to talk about almost anything under the sun except for what really matters to us...except for what is going on inside our own skins. We pass the time of day. We chatter. We hold each other at bay, keep our distance from each other even when God knows it is precisely each other that we desperately need."

i'm struck by how we (westerners) have ordered our lives to do just that. every family has their own home, usually with each person having a room to themselves if they want it. separate cars, schedules, closets, and lives. we live such isolated lives that we are free to go on pretending that nothing is a big deal because we only have to fool people in short bursts. (how we fool ourselves when we are alone is another matter). "if i pretend this isn't a big deal, then it actually won't be." and we can keep pretending (which, as adults, is euphemism for lying), because no one is near enough to require we tell the truth (in word or action or expression).

and never mind putting our "big deals" into categories of good or bad or other. i don't think it matters. i think we down-play them all. we pretend our excitement is small. our fear. our tenderness. our anger. our anticipation. our hope. our disappointment. we "move through the world as though untouched," and we should all of us get Oscars for the effort!

but we long for so much more. i know i do. i don't know how to offer myself, and i don't know how to ask, but i want more. i want to be free to tell the truth about the things going on "inside my own skin." to find a way to ask you about the things that really matter to you, to listen with my whole self, and to be a trustworthy and safe person with such treasure.

i wonder if i can set aside my Americanized notions of "private" and seek community that goes beyond "blurbs" of life together?