Community Saves.

Have you heard of Mary Winkler?

She shot and killed her husband, who was a pastor, one night in 2006 and made national headlines when she tragically disrupted their seemingly perfect marriage. The picture of her and her sweet little family was plastered on every magazine cover in America. Heard of her?

I'm addicted to stories like this. I once read every book I could find on the JonBenet Ramsey murder and wrote the lead detective every thought I had on the case (yes, he wrote back. Yes, we're friends). I guess I'm most intrigued by the human element: what makes people do the things they do, how they get to where they are, what they were missing that led them to those choices. I would describe it as a passion.

A lot of thoughts ran through my mind while I watched Mary's story on Dateline NBC Friday night. It really was beautiful because there was a lot of forgiveness: her daughters forgave her, her husband's parents forgave her and are a part of her life now: there was a lot of grace shown.

But what my mind keeps coming back to is: community.

No one ever knew the real story of their marriage (no one) and Mary suffered because of it. Her husband died because of it. If there's ever a story about the importance of community, this is it. We can't ever live life alone. Ever. Maybe if Mary had told just one person that her husband was controlling, domineering, mean, physically and verbally abusive, forced her to have sex, that she walked around on eggshells: maybe all of this could have been stopped.

We're forgetting what community means.

We feel alone because that's where we're finding ourselves more and more. We strive so hard to be independent and to not seem needy or selfish that we're forgetting the essential: we're not wired to be alone. We're relational beings. We need each other.

My friend Marri tells the story of a painting she loved (still loves) that hung in the waiting room of her pediatrician's office. It's a painting of ten children of all different diversities holding hands and an array of brightly colored kites. She loves it so much: she describes it with such passion. She says it makes her feel cozy. She says it reminds her of the connection we all need.

She writes: "I wanted to hold hands with ten friends and fly kites. I wanted a spot on the wall where I belonged so that if I ever got lost, the yellow and black and transparent kids would point to the blank spot between their hands and say 'Right here- you belong right here!' And if you asked any person on the street- if you went down to Wall Street and asked the harried stockbrokers or the old people in the nursing homes or the Goth kids with black eyeliner and clicking piercings or the Real Housewives of Atlanta- if you asked them if they would rather do anything in the world or have ten friends to hold hands and fly kites with, I guarantee they'd jump into that painting with me."

Wow. You know she's right. We all want hands to hold. We all need hands to hold.

Meet Kathy.

Kathy was one of Mary's only friends. She attended Mary's husband's former church, but was never really friends with the soft spoken Mary. After the arrest, though, she visited Mary frequently in prison and the two became good friends. Kathy even offered to let Mary live at her house while she waited for her trial to start.

That's love winning. In the battlefield of our sin nature and the Spirit, that's choosing the Spirit to win. That's Kathy imitating Christ.

She's building Mary a community. She holding her hands out and giving Mary a kite to hold. She's telling Mary she belongs.

Kathy teaches me that when I become angry and bitter and impatient and resentful of the choices the people in my life make: who are the Marys in my life who could just use a little community of grace? Someone who doesn't need to be shunned for their mistakes or ignored to get a point across: but who can just imitate me as I imitate Christ?

God gave us community to remind us of who we are. Of where we belong. Of Who we belong to. Marri says too that we can spend our whole lives chasing that cozy feeling she gets when she looks at that painting. And she's right: that can be a desperate fruitless chase.. if we don't know where to find it.

We find it in the cross Jesus died on, in His resurrection, in His promise of new life.

"This is why God gave us community: because when we are left to ourselves, pride and self-consciousness set in at dark extremes, and we need community to shed light on them, to burn off the fog of seclusion. To remind us that we are neither better nor worse than everyone else."

(Werewolf Jesus)