We are built for community

COVID-19 has been disruptive and disruption shows us our ability to adjust and adapt.  Our infrastructure is strained because it’s not meant to adjust as quickly as has been required during this time.  Store shelves can’t fill themselves quick enough because buying patterns have peaked well beyond anyone’s models.  

And yet our lives were built for more than toilet paper.  We were built for community.  We are made to touch one another.  Our lives connect at the dinner table and around fire pits.  

When the orders came through to ban congregating, the sheer volume of our world centered around ’together’ became clear: the ball field to the board room, from the houses of music to the houses of worship, our lives (and our infrastructure) are built for together.  While inconvenient to queue outside the store six feet apart, my heart longs to break bread with friends and hug my mother and wrestle my nephew.  This is what we’re built for: community.  

And we still can, even if it looks different.   Life will feel odd until we can shake hands freely and pass the fried chicken with confidence, but until then, we can call and video chat and clap collectively for the heroes among us.  

Until then, I hold my wife and wrestle my son and call friends I haven’t talked to in years.

…and plan a big party.