Random Acts of Community

My mom and I had this running joke for a while about how I was the busiest person in the world who didn’t actually ever do anything. It’s weird because it always seemed like I had something to do, but it was never something I could mark on a list of accomplishments or get paid for or use as a compelling plot for a “During my summer vacation I …” report. A lot of times it involved helping people move, mowing lawns, helping more people move, picking people up at airports, dropping people off at airports, making people late for flights at airports, solving simple yet perplexing computer related difficulties, and other such randomness that can fill one’s time.

I’ve heard this “randomness” proposed by talk show hosts and movies as a sort of social revolution. Random acts of kindness they call it or perhaps paying it forward. And while these social revolutions are carried out to a considerably greater degree than my own acts of randomness, I question the revolutionary nature. I wonder if, perhaps, what I’ve described, what talk show hosts so enthusiastically promote, what movies win critical acclaim for bringing to the masses is merely a dressed up example of what community is supposed to be like. And I wonder this because what I see when we’re experiencing real community like the united front we stood following 9/11 and the united front we stand five years later is exactly what we see when we’re treating each other with respect, when we’re kind to each other, when we’re intentionally paying attention to someone else’s needs other than our own.

When people ask me if I have ever been on a mission trip, this is what I want to say to them, that my mission is to affect those around me in a positive way; that there were needs to be met and in some way, big or small, I was able to meet them. That I overcame selfish desire and design, that I threw to the side the plans I laid in front of me, only to devise a new plan with immediate effects. That I don’t know if I will travel near or far, only that I will travel as far as I can to bring the needs as near as I must. And finally that I will not be so detached as to label my mission as random, but to come to know it as community.