Yet I would also like to offer a term that I first heard from a friend of mine who practices Sikhism. He said that in Sikhism (and Hinduism) there is a term called “householder.” This term designates the phase of life when people are called to live “ordinary” lives (raise families, keep a home whether it be a house or an apartment, perhaps deal with aging parents). It is a recognized part of the spiritual path.

One of the tragedies of Jesus’s life to me is that he died so young, that he never had a chance to enflesh for us what living in the Kingdom of God looks like when your child is hungry and whiny, or has a wet bed, or has a runny nose and a fever, or needs to be driven to school. How do we follow Him in those situations?

This summer I came to the realization that the Friends Meeting I commuted to was too far for me to be really involved and also too one-hour centric. Despite being in a Quaker-heavy geographic area, there’s not even a middling-bar Friends group in even moderately-close distance and if there’s a non-Quaker Christian group I don’t know of them. So this is our challenge perhaps.

One Friend I know has just made it a priority to put whatever is happening at our meeting first on his calendar. Even if he doesn’t think he’ll like it much, he goes. He participates. He is a blessing to whatever group is meeting, and any leader. He himself is not very high maintenance in the WHMS sense, but he is willing to put himself out there. That might be one step towards faithfulness for you, but it’s trickier with kids.

I sometimes say I already live in community. A community where half the people are not really pulling their weight in the housekeeping or emotional maintenance departments. But I am here, picking up the slack. Does that count as community service?

Communities like the ones you listed come with benefits and a price. You have to give up other things, and so do all the people who come with you. What things, and often it is literally things but sometimes it’s more like privacy, would you like to or be willing to give up, if you had support?

Have you heard about The Compact? The no buying anything new for a year project? I’ve known a couple of people who’ve done it, both with a local group and with a blog group. Would there be a small group in your church that would like to try something like that?

The main point I think is that there will never be a large group that even wants to set the bar as high as you (or me). An even smaller group will really do it. You and Jason and one other family might be all you can find in your neck of the woods. It’s enough to start.

May God continue to bless you with questions and courage and a hunger for righteousness.