Connections
When I went to Kentucky for my father-in-law’s funeral this past week, I entered a small town world of connections that is not my normal world. Playing the spectator role, I listened to conversations between friends and family about people and events foreign to me. The dynamic in these conversations I found most fascinating was the constant need for connections. One speaker would begin a story about someone else. Invariably, a listener would interrupt to ask specifics about the individual–who they were, who they were related to, where they lived, and so forth. Sometimes these digressions were longer than the story itself. Only after the listener had settled the mystery of connection to the community did the original storyteller move on. This phenomenon was repeated in practically every conversation.
In a separate conversation, my wife and I talked about the powerful attraction of her hometown where everyone had lifelong friends and deep connections that gave them a firm and settled identity. We, on the other hand, have lived in several different places since marriage and currently live in a small city of about 100,000. Our connections have been broken repeatedly as we’ve pulled up roots and moved. Many of our past friends are, to our disgrace, only names in a rarely used address book. We have friends in our community, but they are few compared to the number one can develop over a life time in one place.A close friend of my wife who lives in her hometown told me he walks five miles every morning beginning at 3 a.m. “Three a.m.!” I said. “Why so early?” “If I did it during daylight hours,” he said, “it would take me twice as long because everyone would want me to stop and talk.” The upside to living in a bigger, more impersonal city, is that I could walk five miles in broad daylight and never meet a single person I know. The downside is that I could walk five miles in broad daylight and never meet a single person I know.
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