For the most part, my personal experience matches yours, but this is a pretty myopic way of looking at the article. I have great friends that are wonderful and amazingly supportive, but there is something just...different about the church community I grew up in.

Take the example of the truly unfortunate disaster, for example as another commenter mentioned, complications with the birth of a 3rd or 4th child. A "good" church community (that seems like a weird phrase, but go with me for a second) would involve people that you might only have passed in the hallway bringing you food, helping out with your other kids, or other chores that you simply don't have the time or energy to do during your emergency state.

Unless you are truly a social juggernaut with a lot of friends that really care about you that much, you're probably going to end up either suffering substantially on your own trying to keep things together, or your close friends are going to resent you for leaning on them so heavily (particularly if the hypothetical emergency at hand is long lasting).

That was waaay more than I meant to write, but I was honestly having the same thought as you and trying to think through it. I think one of the important things this post is saying is missing is more about a community of support with a broader surface area for support beyond just those closest to you.

I can see that might be appealing to some, but it still doesn't really appeal to me. I'm not sure I'd want a wider community of people I hardly know to rally around me like that.

Perhaps I just haven't been in a bad enough situation, perhaps I do trust my friends and family that much, perhaps I'm just more insular than that. I don't know.

You're not alone, I'd feel the same way. I value my independence as an individual too much to appreciate being part of something larger.

How would you even know if you did? What would you have to see or experience about reality or yourself to make you change your mind? How can you know that you haven't already experienced such a thing and just didn't recognize it?

To me that's kind of like saying "how would you know if you're addicted to nicotine if you never tried smoking? You could be feeling the pull of the addiction already and not even know it!"

I know that's an extreme example, and quite negative, so may not map fully to what we'e talking aabout. It just sorta popped in there.

And that’s okay!

My trans friend recently moved to stay with me in California. Her experiences, and the experiences of others, have helped me realise that gender is really important to many people—and I just don’t have a slot for it in my personality.

Same goes for religion—my folks tried to teach me about their religious background from a young age, but I never had the ability to believe in it.

I just try to respect people, and shut my opinion-hole and acknowledge when I just don’t get it.

Oh I'm absolutely not saying it's wrong for other people to do this or want to do it, it just shouldn't be assumed that everyone is looking for something like that.