…are bloggers.

Yes, it’s true.  And for me over the past two years, so much of my community has been found here on the Internet.  It’s hard to explain to people who’ve never fallen in friendship love with someone online.  Why I would spend hundreds of dollars in plane fare to visit her or her; why I would let her stay in my house for 3 weeks while we were out of the country, or why I would share my deepest secrets with her or her?

They are some of my best friends in the world and they are spread out all over the globe.

So while I’m hiding out with my husband (in some undisclosed location – wink) for the next 36 hours, here are some of my favorite Internet loves and friends.  I hope you find a new friend today, too.

Start here: if you’ve never read my story.  Start with that.

Cindy Beall (the goddess of Oklahoma) has an amazing testimony of God’s faithfulness and grace in the face of her own husband’s infidelity.  She’s beautiful and (did I already say amazing?) amazing and I can’t wait to hug her very very very soon.

Mandy Thomson (coolest girl drummer in Boston) is a Georgia transplant who is about ready to move home.  Mandy will make you laugh and then let you listen to her latest song right there on her blog.  Last fall Chad and I visited her and Drew for the longest double date of any of our lives.  I’ve never laughed so hard or had so much fun in a graveyard, ever.

Annie (well, we’re just going to call her Annie Blogs) is the funniest person I’ve met (not including my own husband).  I call her first for everything writing-related and can just say, “hi” and pick up from where we left off the last time.  She loves my kids and she graciously tolerated my cat for 3 weeks last spring when she stayed in our house while we were gone.  She’s the kind of writer I want to be like when I grow up (and maybe I can live in Nashville too, like her).

Along with Annie and myself, Melodee and Linda make up the Hermonistas. We met two years ago at Mount Hermon Writers Conference and have been the best of writing friends ever since. They’ve torn apart my writing (in good ways) and have been both excited and disappointed for me at appropriate times.  Mel lives in Seattle and Linda lives about 5 miles from my but I’ve never been more thankful for a group of women. (By the way, anyone out there going to Mount Hermon this year?)

Lisa Leonard (Internet jewelry maven) has been my best real life friend since college.  She taught me how to blow dry curly hair (even though mine is straight), to drink hot tea without letting the loose leaves free in the cup, and how to be a good friend.  Lisa has an amazing jewelry business and blog. If you’ve never seen her work, go visit now and buy something!

Alece (aka Grit and Glory) is someone that I admire maybe more than anyone right now. She’s been sharing her story the past several days. She’s home in the States for awhile before she returns to her ministry in South Africa sometime in the future.  You will love her as much as I do, I know it.

Denise and Kristen (from California and Idaho respectively) are two of my favorite girls.  Both homeschooling moms (a reason alone for earning the title of HERO in my book) the three of us spent a (short) few days together in May.  I love them. Simply that. If I could live next door to anyone in the world, it would be them.

Elizabeth Esther is worthy of all honor because she has FIVE amazing kids and seems to keep it all together too.  And…she’s writing a book.  She lives close by so I call her on a whim to meet me at the park or she calls me on a whim to meet her at Starbucks. It works out less than we’d like, but when it does, it’s all laughter and misadventure.  (Well, not really the misadventure. It just sounded good).

There are so many more.  Visit my blogroll to see some of the girls (and guys) I read when I get a chance to read blogs.

Let me know if you’ve found a new “friend” today!

Little girls make friends so easily.

On the playground it consists of nothing more than shared interest, inhabiting the same place in the space/time continuum and a tag-you’re-IT mentality.

Naomi walks right up to two little boys near the slide, Can we be friends? Let’s play on the swings. I’ll show you how to swing on your belly...

And off the three of them run.  Together.  No gender issues. No worrying about status or name or race or worldview. They don’t even try to beat each other to the swing set: they know there is more than enough playground equipment to go around.

It’s just three preschoolers happy to be at the park, happy to find someone else to share the morning with and happy to look eye-level at another kid.

Three-year-old community.

And an example for us.

So often I feel like I’m in the search for community.  There isn’t much community in suburbia unless I look for it.  And somehow, in my search, I seem to want to look across the table from people exactly like me.  I’m going to be honest, I never actually think this. But on this lofty search without thinking about it I set out for people who believe like me and in some ways look like me.

I know I’m not alone in this, so I’m going to be vulnerable.  Sometimes, before becoming friends I conduct an “interview”: I weigh comments and ideas and beliefs of the other person and in the depths of my brain, I make some kind of judgment about how close we can become based on these ideas.  Less like me, less close.  More like me, we can be bosom buddies.

But this isn’t right.  It’s horrible, I know.  And I realized this when I watched the three-year-olds swing on their bellies at the playground.  They were different. They didn’t come from the same place. But they all just wanted to play.

Friendships are richer when we are different.  They can actually be better when we find those people who are our opposites.  They rub off our rough edges.

Churches are stronger when we come from different backgrounds. We all add our wisdom to the work, wisdom that has come from vastly different experiences and lives.

And because of this, I think community is better when we aren’t alike. Our lives would be so much sweeter if we were less consumed about the what’s and why’s and more concerned about being friends and letting others into our lives and hearts without worrying about the outcome.

I need friends who aren’t like me. It’s important.

I need people around me who don’t think like me.  I need blog commenters who disagree.  It’s good for the community.

So, even if we don’t all think the same or look the same, let’s jump on the slide and play tag for the morning.  Let’s be friends, no matter what. We’ll be better for it.

How do you find community?  Am I alone in this?