The Twelfth Day of Christmas: Community

In one way, celebrating the 12 days of community with the High Calling Blogs has been difficult. There are too many people to celebrate.

Here are the links to my 11 previous posts:

The First Day of Christmas: Athol Dickson
The Second Day of Christmas: Laura Boggess
The Third Day of Christmas: Two from Bellingham (Jim Schmotzer and Fred Sprinkle)
The Fourth Day of Christmas: Maureen Doallas
The Fifth Day of Christmas: Nancy Rosback
The Sixth Day of Christmas: Marcus Goodyear
The Seventh Day of Christmas: New Friends (Doug Spurling, Susan Etole, Randall David Tipton, Phoenix Karenee, Claire Burge)
The Eighth Day of Christmas: Farm Life (Ann Vosberg and Jennifer Dukes Lee)
The Ninth Day of Christmas: A Book (L.L. Barkat’s InsideOut: Poems)
The Tenth Day of Christmas: Suspense (Mike Dellosso, Travis Thrasher, Adam Blumer, Sam Batterman)
The Eleventh Day of Christmas: A Shrunken Camel (Bradley Moore)

All of these are people I’ve come to know, to a greater or lesser extent, through the internet: Twitter, Facebook, blogs, blog comments and email. I’ve talked to one of them on the telephone one time. Truly a “virtual community.”

Except.

Except: I’ve shared prayer requests with many of these people. I’ve prayed for them and they’ve prayed for me. I’ve prayed together with some online via email. (You should try that – a prayer exchange via email or Twitter direct message.)

Except: we’ve gone well out of our ways to encourage each other – possibly because encouragement seems to be in such short supply. Fifteen minutes of fame, 15 minutes of adulation – these we have in abundance. But too little encouragement.

Except: to one degree or another, we’re all writers. And we share that curious combination of courage and fear, audacity and intimidation, that seems to be the trademark of most writers.

Except: the community doesn’t stop here. You can’t cover an online community in 12 days of posts. There are many, many others I could have highlighted. And I think I will. So don’t be surprised to find the “27th Day of Christmas” or “44th Day of Christmas” except I’ll substitute “community” for “Christmas” in keeping with what the original High Calling Blogs idea. (Yes, L.L., I changed it.) (Deliberately.)

Except: we are of a faith. This is the most important “except,” the reason why all the rest even happen. We share a common faith, a faith with an earthly set of origins in Bethlehem but a heavenly set of origins whose beginning cannot be measured or defined or even understood, ultimately. But even with our human understanding falling short, we are forever grateful.

And I’m grateful for this community of faith that we’ve been celebrating at the High Calling Blogs.