Death of a Dream

In 2001, with the calling of a new rector and subsequent personal dialog with him for the first few months, I thought there was a real opportunity to form a Christian community within the context of an existing Anglican parish.

As the practicalities of a near total rebuilding after an arson fire and the political realities of dealing with parishoners set it, coupled with a growing awareness that the rector quietly kept a tight control of much of the parish operation and would not trust/release others to the extent necessary to grow a large parish community, the prospect of that slowly faded over a couple of years. The dream per se remained alive as still possible to realize were the rector to change.

When that rector left, the possibility of that instance of the dream of community ceased, but the hope remained that the dream itself might yet be possible at a later time within that parish.

When the search process was compromised to install the assistant, and the parish began to disintegrate under one that should never have been in that role, I slowly began to have doubts about the possibility of the dream ever being actualized.

I suppose at the moment that I would say that the dream per se is not dead, but I have something of a despair of its possibilities of realization. That extended organic communities exist does still give hope.

I find the willingness to be deeply accountable, necessary to the life of an organic community, is the exception within an existing parish. I wonder if a community must not be formed initially with such principles, around the principles of one of the tested rules of community, in order for the members to have the personal committment that the community should have a chance of surviving.