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FROM THE EDITOR

By Erik Alsgaard

Erik Alsgaard

I was driving to the first of Bishop John Schol?s ?Vision, Mission, Beliefs and Values? listening posts/workshop sessions the other Monday. As usual, I tuned my car radio to get the traffic report. The snow had thawed somewhat on Sunday, but puddles on the roads had turned back to ice overnight. I waited as Lisa Baden on WTOP told me where to go.

After the traffic report was the weather. Here is how the guy phrased it, as best as I can remember it now:

?Be careful on the roads as you?re leaving your development this morning, because the roads could be icy in spots.?

Development? What?s that? I live in a development?

So I checked the dictionary.

The fourth definition listed was: ?a thing that is developed; specifically, a number of structures on a large tract of land built by a real-estate developer.?

From where I live in suburban Washington, that about sums it up.

And then the depressing reality sunk in: I?m living in a development world but searching for community. There is a big difference.

It seems that almost everywhere you turn, another development is underway. My wife, Sheila, and I have a running commentary about how, in Northern Virginia and the Maryland suburbs of DC, there will soon not be one square yard of green left because something will be built on it. We?re considering buying that last one square yard of green because, as Mark Twain once said, ?Invest in land: it?s the only thing they?re not making more of.?

Near our house, new places to live spring up faster than we can keep track. Townhouses, condominiums, apartments, McMansions ? you name it, they?re all here, they cost dear, get used to it.

On the one hand, aren?t you delighted to have all this growth? The price of my little slice of the American Dream has risen 79 percent in the last four years, according to the report in the newspaper today. Other developments have risen even faster. So yea for us, our wallets will be happy and fat one day.

On the other hand, what is it that we?re building? Certainly what we are not building are communities. ?Rabbit warrens? seems the best description. I offer my life as an example. On the block where I live, I know my neighbors, Bill and Betsy, and that?s about it. I know little Anna down the street ? she loves our dog, Nanuk ? and I recognize Mr. Lee down the other way when he comes out to tend to his beloved Cadillac (keeps it covered all the time ? the thing is in mint condition). Otherwise, I come and I go and live my life and have no real sense of community.

And I miss it.

I would love to live in a place where there?s a corner store you can ride your bicycle to. I would love a neighborhood where people sat on their front porches, went for walks with the kids after dinner and before the sun set, and where people knew your name, not just, ?hey there.?

I would love to live in a place where people don?t hide out on their back decks, or lurk in their basements, and it?s impossible to tell if anyone?s at home from the street because all the lights in the front of the house are off all the time, anyway.

I?m tired of living in a ?development? world. I want a community.

So I take that longing for community, along with hundreds of people in our developments, to church. There must be community there, right?

Frankly, no.

I stopped attending my local United Methodist church because I found very little community there. No one paid me a visit at home. No one called to find out why I wasn?t in church anymore. No one followed up to see why I stopped singing in the choir. No one invited me to movie night or to play softball or to build a Habitat house.

I, like hundreds, if not thousands, of other United Methodists, just simply faded away.

Oh sure, it?s my fault. I know the pastor is busy and so is the choir director. It?s a large church and they?re going through a massive building phase (they still send me the newsletter). I know I should go back. But for what?

Oh sure, it?s my fault. I know I should find a new church home. I just need the guts to simply go and try again.

Oh sure, I still go to church. I attend worship services at various places like the Conference Center, at ROCK and at any number of churches I visit around the conference. I pray every day, especially just before entering the Beltway.

I just don?t seem to have a church home anymore and that bothers me. It shouldn?t be that way. So I?m searching. Searching for community.

I wonder what will develop.