It was a very uncomfortable August night a few years ago that gave me new appreciation for one of my favorite biblical images of community. An old neck injury had come back to bother me. It had been acquired several years before, when I was being a bit too daring on a water ski and inadvertently went skipping over the water nine times on my head.
The only real relief from the pain when it recurs is to lie flat. However, I was also plagued at the time with a summer version of the flu, one of its major manifestations being a badly congested head. To lie flat meant to be unable to breathe.
I was trying to decide between the two options--breathing with pain, or not breathing without pain--when friend and Sojourners Community member Dolly Arroyo walked in with a pile of pillows, hoping to arrange a gradual slope for my head that would accommodate both problems. This was only a mild success.
Trying to take my mind off my distress, I pulled out a book to read. But Dolly (she's an occupational therapist) caught me and on her way out the door said, "Remember what the eye doctor said about reading in bed being bad for your eyes." I put the book away.
Dolly returned in a moment with a heating pad, a bag of cough drops, and the suggestion, "Why not take a decongestant?" I explained that since I had nose surgery several years earlier I'm not allowed to use the stuff.
The pillows kept slipping. Sleeping on my side was painful, but on my back I was afraid of choking on a cough drop. And at the moment I couldn't think of anything worse than lying on a heating pad in Washington, D.C., in August.
Unable to sleep, and unable to laugh at my dilemma without creating more pain, I started thinking biblical thoughts, which is of course automatic for any Sojourner in a painful predicament. For some reason my mind wandered to 1 Corinthians 12--the chapter that talks about all the members of the body being connected, so that when one suffers, they all suffer together.
It's all rather remarkable actually. I recalled the story of my nose surgery. Six years before I had stopped hearing out of my left ear, and my doctor (he was actually an otolaryngologist) said, "Yes, you have a problem with your nose all right." I thought that perhaps he was having trouble with his hearing and explained again that the problem was in my ear.
It turned out that he was right. The left side of my nose was blocked ( a deviated nasal septum, to be precise--a gift inherited from my father), so that no air was getting through all those passages to my ear to keep it clear. Shortly afterward, I was clearing up my ear dilemma by having my nose chiseled out (a story too gruesome to record here), and for a week I breathed out of my mouth. Connections.
I remember the loving array of gifts from community members that was showered upon me on my return from the hospital: a dozen beautiful carnations, my favorite chocolate-covered donuts (natives of Hershey, Pennsylvania, like me are unashamedly addicted to chocolate), a book of short stories. My nose contained a mile of gauze packing, so I could not smell the flowers--or taste the donuts--or even read the book (my eyes being too swollen to receive my contact lenses and my nose too sore to hold my glasses, without which I am virtually blind). Connections.
WELL, THE LESSONS for community living are many. It seems that some days we're all like spines, offering support, and hearts, keeping the whole thing going. But let's face it, at one time or another each of us will be like the nose, draining the life of the community. Or like the neck, we will go through all sorts of contortions to get attention. Usually at any one time, one or another of us is suffering from a lack of confidence, or of faith, or from our own sin.
There is a natural principle that operates here that I've often heard repeated. With the exception of me (all my senses are shot), when one sense is weak, the others strengthen in order to compensate.
It's a little bit like community. We suffer and celebrate together. And when we need it on the difficult days, when pain is intense or despair seems close, we use our strength to carry one another.
Celebrating the connections is at the heart of community. And, frankly, I breathe a little easier knowing that's true.
Joyce Hollyday was associate editor of Sojourners when this article appeared.
Got something to say about what you're reading? We value your feedback!