We Will Never Walk This Way Again
Opinion Columns
Nicolais: Our shared communities — from soccer bar to the church pews — make sure we never walk alone
After two years of cleaved interaction with various communities, information technology is life-affirming to be back among the people who know me
Between my borderline for this cavalcade and its publication in the wee morning hours of Lord's day, I volition attend a wake at my honey soccer bar, the British Bulldog. Or maybe it is a memorial, I am not quite sure.
What I practise know is that a community volition exist gathering. A customs that included Damian, the person we volition be remembering. A community that volition be toasting his life, singing his praises and supporting each other. It is a approving and so many of us missed during the pandemic and maybe still gets overlooked likewise frequently.
In this instance, I did not know Damian well on an individual level. But I did know him. I knew quite a chip virtually him because of his place in our shared corner of the world.
I knew that he loved soccer and Liverpool in particular. I knew that he liked to talk a lot of trash in his Irish gaelic accent and could drive supporters of other clubs to the verge of violence. I also knew that he had a style of putting on his charm, diffusing the acrimony and creating a new drinking buddy by the end of a match. He knew they shared a passion and place in this globe no matter how angry he might make someone.
And that is what helps make a community. That is how I knew someone I never saw except at a soccer bar.
I feel blessed that I accept multiple different communities that know me. Within the British Bullog itself, I know I am a part of several. I wrote most them in a column last year. I am every bit at habitation in that location as Norm is in Cheers, down to my own call-and-answer with a bartender named Sam.
But I am lucky plenty to be a part of several other communities.
My church building customs struggled through the COVID pandemic, relegated to Zoom services similar so many others. Just with vaccinations and dwindling instance rates, we began to get together once again in person. I enjoyed the return so much that I found myself more than active than I ever had been earlier, participating in adult organized religion pedagogy courses and lay leadership meetings.
Receiving communion is not just about taking the bread and wine, it is as much the people we practise it with. In fact, ours usually follows "The Peace" greeting when congregants turn to recognize each other. It is a source of pride in our small-scale parish that we take near every bit long to greet each other every bit pass through the communion line. Typically, nearly every member in attendance will greet every other member, often with hugs and outsized smiles along the way.
Sunday mornings oft see me dash out the church doors to visit some other customs I cherish. It is a pickup game of soccer in Cranmer Park that I have played in for nearly a decade. We play for hours with pop-up goals, a portable speaker system for music and lots of laughter. When we are done, we often sit talking and catching up long after we have taken off our cleats and packed upward our numberless.
I have professional communities and political communities and social network communities that I engage regularly. Each brings its own set of interactions and joy. Each helps support me and give me a life-affirming heave. Each knows me, in one way or some other.
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The crest for Liverpool FC includes the phrase "You'll Never Walk Alone." Damian did not walk alone because he was a part of a shared community. And I know that I do not walk solitary thanks the communities that have accepted me into them.
Mario Nicolais is an chaser and columnist who writes on constabulary enforcement, the legal arrangement, health care and public policy. Follow him on Twitter: @MarioNicolaiEsq
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Source: https://coloradosun.com/2022/05/01/nicolais-religion-sports-communities-opinion/
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