Wandering with Reckless Abandon

A.A. figured out a while back that community has a power that few things can prevail over. Throughout the course of my life I have seen this to be true time and time again. I have seen what happens when my life is connected with a healthy community, I have seen what happens when I am connected to a dysfunctional community, and I have seen the devastating affects on my life without any kind of community.

Way back when I posted about my desire to begin to deal with some of my health issues. I promised that I would do periodic updates on my situation, and I figure that now would be a decent time since a handful of people have been asking lately. I have lost about twenty pounds since the beginning of August, which I am pretty excited about. And while the gym thing has not worked out to be as regular of an undertaking as I thought that it might have been, it did serve as a bit of a catalyst to get me rolling.

What has really helped me, more than anything, is the fact that I have slowly connected myself into a fairly healthy community over this past year. I have mentioned from time to time that this sabbatical of sorts, unplanned (by me at least) though it was, has been one of the richest seasons of my spiritual life to date. It has also been a great opportunity to reconnect with my family after living all over the country for twelve years or so. It has been cool to get to know my sister as an adult (did I mention I am going to have a nephew soon?), and to watch my parents play together as empty nesters. I have had the opportunity to gain influence in the lives of people that I work with, from both within and without the Christian realm, have had the opportunity to begin to connect with a crazy group of people that have this dream of starting a new community of faith within the city of Baltimore, and then there is this girl from Long Island…

As I look back over the course of my life, and see the places that I have been healthiest in all aspects of my life (spiritual, emotional, and physical) the common theme has always been a healthy community doing life together. A place that will allow me to be a mess from time to time, and a place where others in the community have the freedom to be a mess. I was a part of that in Colorado, was able to experience it in Atlanta, and now it is forming in Baltimore.