My name is Robert Neville. I am a survivor living in New York City.
I am broadcasting on all AM frequencies. I will be at the South
Street Seaport every day at mid-day, when the sun is highest in
the sky. If you are out there ... if anyone is out there ... I can provide
food, I can provide shelter, I can provide security. If there's anybody
out there ... anybody ... please. Your are not alone.
--Robert Neville (Will Smith), "I Am Legend"
I was spinnin' 'round a dead dial
Just another lost number in a file
Dancin' down a dark hole
Just searchin' for a world with some soul
This is radio nowhere, is there anybody alive out there?
--Bruce Springsteen, "Radio Nowhere"
On Easter Sunday, I wrote a piece that was, in part, about my current church "free agency." My family and I have not regularly attended a church since last summer, for a variety of reasons. If I had to boil them down to one basic reason, though, it's simply that I don't feel like I belong.
As I have made peace with that realization, I've also become firmly convinced of something else:
I can't be the only one.
There have to be others right here in good ol' Harlan County, Kentucky, who crave community and some element of spirituality in their lives, but who don't find what they're looking for at area churches. Maybe they consider themselves Christians, and maybe they don't; I don't care. I only know that there are others. There simply must be.
To those people, I say: I hope you're reading this. I hope you're finding your pulse picking up a bit; maybe you're realizing for the first time that you're not alone.
Maybe your political views are similar to mine, and maybe they're not. Maybe you have similar tastes in music and movies, and maybe you don't. Maybe you're gay, and maybe you're straight. Maybe you enjoy a drink every now and then, and maybe you're a teetotaler.
Either way -- I would love for us to hang out.
Starting this Sunday evening at 6:00, my family will be opening our home for people to come and hang out. We'll maybe have a snack. We'll talk. We'll have a little (laid-back) Bible study -- the good kind, where questions and doubts are allowed and we can talk (and even disagree) with humility and civility. We might play a board game. It'll be great.
We'd love for you to join us.
