By Jim Nichols

The thesis of this set of comments is that each of us can do certain things, but we seldom do them perfectly. Even more alarming as we age is that things we used to be able to do earlier in life have now become difficult if not impossible. If this distresses you, you and I are thinking along the same lines. 

The day started out happily; it even had a couple of laugh-out-loud points. My morning routine usually takes me with my electric razor to the couch where I shave while watching the weather, news headlines, and then to ESPN sports highlights. That morning when I reached ESPN, they were just beginning the segment they call “The Not Top Ten.”

This segment is the opposite of the “Top Ten” from the previous day where players make excellent hard-to-believe plays in various sports. The “Not Top Ten” is basically a succession of bloopers from games in which players trip and fall, run into each other, drop the ball, and make hard-to-believe errors. Not only is it humorous, but it is a reminder that these mostly professional players making millions of dollars each year are, in fact, fallible in their sport. I need to hear that.

Later that morning I went to a physical therapy appointment where my kind, but effective therapist put me through some rigorous activities designed to increase the strength of my lower body. These exercises are often right at the limit of my ability and current strength. I believe they are good for me, but I perform them quite imperfectly. 

The day continued to become even more serious with three successive visits with old friends who have serious and debilitating illnesses or injuries. These alert and previously strong individuals now find themselves at least temporarily largely unable to do many of the activities of their previous life. Each of them is grieving. They each express weariness, boredom, and frustration with the changes in their life. Each of them is a person trying to follow and trust in God, but their current set of losses is significant.

By the time the morning was over, the theme of imperfection was clear to me. Each of us has interests and abilities that we have played out well at certain times in life. Those activities have brought us joy and fulfillment. We have learned, have we not, that those times come and go and may disappear completely. 

An unfortunate aspect of modern American life is that we have bought in so seriously to the concept of individualism. The older I get, the more I realize that it is a trap leading to unhappiness and disappointment. To paraphrase John Donne, none of us is an island apart from everyone else. God made us for community and the more each of us divorces ourselves from the community, the more difficult and distressing life becomes. 

I have mentioned the potato sack analogy before here. An old friend reared on an Arkansas potato farm spoke of gathering potatoes and carrying them in burlap sacks. Eventually one’s sack developed a hole in one place and the potatoes kept falling out. They found that they could put two sacks inside one another to address the problem. Each sack had a hole in it, but in a different place. The holes in my sack are covered up by your sack and vice versa.

Your worship group/church can be an effective community for you, though it is certainly not the only option. Furthermore, communities are not perfect. Clearly, a community does not always resolve unanswered questions. It does not make the future more predictable. Unfortunately, it does not completely resolve grief. But it does provide a platform for joy, even joy in unexpected places and times. I have been at funerals (a particular type of community that gathers) where there have been clear moments of joy even with sorrow existing alongside.

We must not expect too much from a community. They can hurt us sometimes. It might be wonderful in theory, but these are real people who are at least as imperfect as we ourselves are. It might be awkward but let us keep trying and keep showing up. It will have to be a “good enough community.”

Jim Nichols is a retired Abilene Christian University biology professor and current hospital chaplain