HS #90 2023.1.12
35 Years Living in Community
As I write this, I’m watching the original Star Wars movie on TV. I didn’t realize when viewing it as a sophomore in college that the theme of the trilogy is friendship. When Luke chooses C-3P0, his fearless droid friend R2-D2 rocks back and forth in anxiety fearing he will lose his companion. At C-3P0’s suggestion, Luke takes R2-D2 also, so the two friends stay together.
Friendship binds the humans as well. Hans Solo foregoes his own plans for the sake of his new friends, and Luke’s dedication to friends gives him the spirit and power to defeat the emperor.
And I just saw an ad for “The Wizard of Oz.” Friendship is its theme too. Dorothy realizes that love of faithful friends, family and home are the only things worth living for.
Yes, we are meant to live in community with friends.
Indeed, why am I watching Star Wars on TV? I own the DVD; I can watch it anytime. But it feels good knowing others are sharing the experience. I endure commercials for the sake of (unseen) community. I can even appreciate being stuck in traffic realizing that the entire lineup of vehicles is a spontaneously formed community of sorts – each of us dependent upon the actions of the others.
It was this desire for community that brought me to Holland 35 years ago this week.
After completing my Ph.D. in mathematics at Iowa State University in 1987, I received employment offers from Hope College and two state universities. Having done my higher education at public universities, I was tempted to make one my career home. But I was fascinated by the prospect of living an integrated life in a community where my colleagues were also my neighbors.
Having grown up as a PK, we moved several times during my childhood. Thus, perhaps I value more than most the opportunity to have lived in Holland for 35 years – most of it in the same brick ranch on East 12th Street. There is something rich about riding my bicycle around town noting the homes of friends and neighbors – some departed, of walking through the cemetery on 16th Street among increasing numbers of engraved names of longtime friends and colleagues. Indeed, my life is enriched as I live surrounded by ghosts who speak to me providing memories from the past.
How neat to live several blocks from where my father and grandfather went to college and seminary. I served as a Resident Director in Archie/Cosmo Hall for five years – those were the fraternities of which they were members.
How rich to have spent over 30 years celebrating holidays with my cousins at the home of my (now 94-year-old) aunt, seeing my cousin’s young boys grow to have children of their own.
And to have a former colleague tell me recently that he prays for me as he passes my home on his daily run.
There is richness in long enduring relationships.
On the other hand, I tell students that the best way to learn is by keeping one foot on firm ground while venturing into unknown water with the other. That is, we should explore new territory while staying connected and secure with the old and familiar.
Similarly, some relationships and communities are eventually replaced by new ones. Since coming to Holland, I have taught at four different colleges, sung in six different choirs, and changed churches. New hobbies also bring new communities. Racquetball and ultimate frisbee partners have given way to pickleball and kayaking friends. Since 2015, writing this monthly column has formed new connections. Few of these changes were planned in advance, and that very fact makes the future both hopeful and exciting. Retirement will bring losses, but also new opportunities and relationships. Even as life changes, new communities emerge and buoy us up.
What about you? Teddy Roosevelt’s daughter said her father would be the bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral. Yes, it’s hard to attend a wedding or funeral without thinking of oneself. M.C. Escher’s self-portrait shows his reflection front and center in a crystal globe held in his outstretched hand. We are all the central image in our own lives.
So even as you, my Holland neighbors, read my life details, I hope and assume that you have been remembering similar stories and evolving communities of your own. As life changes, we are blessed to live in community – with each other.
