Connecting

When I go to a meeting and it is crowded, I might say to someone next to me, a stranger, "Wow, this meeting is really crowded!"  Why say this?  Doesn't this person already know this?  Yes.  I am saying it because I am trying to make a connection with this person who is sitting next to me.  Language can do this about things that we experience in common, though we "feel" alone.  "Boy, it is cold out here," I might say to the fellow standing in the cold next to me.  He knows it.  I am not giving him information, but rather building a connection.  Choirs at church, such as a children's choir, is not just about the finished product of singing a song well in group.  It is also about building community among children who don't know one another all that well.  They have to spend time together, compromise on what to sing and not sing, try to give up something of themselves to serve the overall product.  In all this "language of singing" they are getting to know one another.  They are building community.  I suspect that the best model of a church community is the choir and musicians.  When my friend Rhonda Gallagher was into forming children's choirs it was not all about the music.  As a priest, I am a distant second to her building community.  So I continue to say the obvious to strangers in gatherings.  Isolation is not a good thing for me.  "Hey! Yesterday was Christmas."