“The rootlessness of contemporary life has frayed community bonds. It is common now to find people who don’t know their neighbors and don’t really want to. To be part of a community is to share in its life. That inevitably makes demands on the individual that limits his freedom.”   – Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option

A dry bush blew across the road today, large and wooden, wildly out of place in a lushly green, tropical land. A tumbleweed in Maui? Yet it made me think. Why are we such a disconnected society. Why do we so often worship freedom, and avoid stable commitments? Why do we change jobs so often? Schools? Churches? Communities? Everything looks like greener grass from here. But move a bush over and over again, and at each planting some of the root system dies back. It cannot bear fruit. It gets smaller, browner. Even in a tropical place. One day, it blows across the road.

And so it is with our souls. In the name of “new opportunities” we strangle God ‘s design for deep friendships which nourish us over our lives. We pull up. We dry up.

Lord, plant me deep. Find good soil for me, and plant me for the long haul. I want to grow, not blow. Amen.