What comes to mind when someone asks you to build community?

Do you imagine something dreamy? Light? Romantic? Is it all smiles, with easy collaborative efforts and folks gathering around singing Kumbaya in perfect harmony?

I hate to break it to ya, Subscriber First Name, but this isn’t always the case. What doesn’t get said enough about being in and building community is that often times it comes with difficult and patience-testing work.

I’ve been seeing a lot of great social media posts about what it takes to create a strong community, and I actually posted a little something on Instagram yesterday. People have been affirming that community work isn’t always glamorous. It’s about showing up when we don’t want to. It’s about handing the mic over and letting someone else speak. It’s about abandoning convenience and stepping into what the moment truly asks of us.

I’ve had some great conversations with local nonprofit leaders who have shared their metaphors of building in community:

“Sometimes community building feels like you need just to roll up your sleeves, get in the back, and start chopping wood.”

“Community leadership is like looking around the room, recognizing that everyone really wants ketchup… seeing that one else is able to get up and get the ketchup… so you should probably just get up and get the ketchup.”

Last week I had an interesting community building experience: In a professional setting, I was asked to cut onions. Nope, not a metaphor. Actual onions.

Quick backstory: I was co-hosting a community event here in San Diego. This was an event I had been planning for over a year and admittedly, I thought it would be glamorous, dreamy, and a whole lotta Kumbaya.

But as the months chugged along, I realized how hard this work was. The journey of ease and convenience faded fast, and was quickly replaced by bumps in the road that tripped me up and humbled me every step of the way.

Even in my community’s attempt to put on an incredible event, it became abundantly clear that we’re not supposed to get along all of the time. Conflict is necessary for change to happen. People are going to drop the ball… more than once. You are going to drop the ball… more than once. Folks are going to annoy one another and test your patience and maybe even make you question your sanity. You’re going to have to give grace, and at the same time remind people to do the damn work.

And so when someone tapped my shoulder at Friday’s event and said, “Hey Loretta, can you please get in the kitchen and help us cut onions?” I wasn’t surprised. I wasn’t mad. I smiled, actually, because I realized this is what being in community is all about.

When you’re willing to step up and do the tedious, messy, and perhaps the painful and tear-inducing thing, then you’re really in community. You shed ego and become a part of the eco(system). You become adaptable, a person who is rooted in collective care and collective success, and in turn, someone who can really be trusted.

Hopefully Subscriber First Name, you exist in communities where there is ease and lightness. But chances are, you might also exist in a community (like a burned out and overwhelmed workplace) where things are really, really hard right now.

I can’t promise you that achieving success and meeting your goals with this community will be easy. In fact, I can almost guarantee that it will come with challenges. But I promise you, doing the true, onion cutting, wood chopping, go-and-fetch-the-ketchup community work with your team is worth it. Roll up your sleeves, figure out your part, and ask people to do theirs. Find the shared purpose and build the thing. Trust the process. Do it together.