thots on community
“Community” has become one of those very popular words. It’s used a whole lot and, if you really think about it, it’s not hard to see why. It’s used vastly and variously to express so many different situations, and to look at the way it’s used is to see its wide appeal. Community can be all the people who live together in a common place; or it can be the people of an area considered collectively in the context of social values and responsibilities; or a group of people who have a particular characteristic in common, such as religion, race, or profession. (I suppose I should cite the Oxford American Dictionary for these definitions). “Community” has its root in the word common, which does indeed seem to make sense. After all, it is common characteristics that seem to gather a group of people together. And there is something particularly beautiful about this because it may only be one or two commonalities that can establish a community. Such as an AA meeting, which is a community that gathers together in need of support and understanding for the particular addiction of alcoholism. I don’t think it matters all that much once you get there whether the other people in the group make the same amount of money, live in the same area of town, hold the same political ideals, or even believe the same things about God that you do. What matters is that they have been where you are and that they are not judging you; they are able to understand you in a way that a non-alcoholic does; they are able to help you gain your footing on a slippery slope and walk alongside you, even as you help them get their feet about them.
In some sense, you are able to choose your community (or at least whether you will become an active participant in a certain community), but a community must also choose you. There are certain circumstances and commonalities that must already be present for community to exist and those cannot be forced. To some extent, they are natural characteristics and there is little choice (on your part) as to whether a community will open up to you; the decision is out of your hands. The beautiful thing about a community though, is that it seems to imply inclusion. Particularly, a communal familiarity with an individual seems to be enough, in many cases, to include you within a community. Look at the way you make friends, the way a neighbourhood community works, or the way a faith-based community works. In some sense, there needs to be more than simple familiarity involved in the process, but it is certainly very important.
I don’t know if you’ve ever had the opportunity to decide whether you wanted to be someone’s friend. Maybe you keep running into X all over the place, in a coffee shop and in the street and outside your apartment, and you’ve just been introduced briefly, but you decide that, yes, X will be a friend of mine. I think it’s probably a little like deciding who you will marry – or maybe there is merely a passing resemblance that I can’t understand at this point. But I have heard a few times from a few different couples that there came a point in their relationship when they looked at their girlfriend/boyfriend and decided, yes, this is the person I am going to marry. And I suppose this could be a little like when people say that love is a choice, although I think it’s more complicated than that. Well, that’s kind of like the mutual decision for community, I think. Commonalities only take you so far, and then comes the decision, then comes the commitment...
In some sense, you are able to choose your community (or at least whether you will become an active participant in a certain community), but a community must also choose you. There are certain circumstances and commonalities that must already be present for community to exist and those cannot be forced. To some extent, they are natural characteristics and there is little choice (on your part) as to whether a community will open up to you; the decision is out of your hands. The beautiful thing about a community though, is that it seems to imply inclusion. Particularly, a communal familiarity with an individual seems to be enough, in many cases, to include you within a community. Look at the way you make friends, the way a neighbourhood community works, or the way a faith-based community works. In some sense, there needs to be more than simple familiarity involved in the process, but it is certainly very important.
I don’t know if you’ve ever had the opportunity to decide whether you wanted to be someone’s friend. Maybe you keep running into X all over the place, in a coffee shop and in the street and outside your apartment, and you’ve just been introduced briefly, but you decide that, yes, X will be a friend of mine. I think it’s probably a little like deciding who you will marry – or maybe there is merely a passing resemblance that I can’t understand at this point. But I have heard a few times from a few different couples that there came a point in their relationship when they looked at their girlfriend/boyfriend and decided, yes, this is the person I am going to marry. And I suppose this could be a little like when people say that love is a choice, although I think it’s more complicated than that. Well, that’s kind of like the mutual decision for community, I think. Commonalities only take you so far, and then comes the decision, then comes the commitment...
posted by chris at 21:55
2 Comments:
Lately I've been thinking about the various roles we play in building and maintaining community. Some of us play the role of 'pursuer' and some of us play the role of 'the pursued'. If we always wait for people to pursue us there is very little risk in this...and very little decision-making on our parts. We just sit back and wait for people to come to us. And this is not a negative thing in and of itself, unless we get to the point where we never pursue others. However, there is a great deal more risk, choice, and richness to be found in actively pursuing other people as well, if we could only rid ourselves of our fear of being rejected. Then maybe we would be more free to bring ourselves honestly into all of our relationships with our primary motive being not to be accepted and affirmed but to know, respect, and love others. True community is being vulnerable and authentic with others while remaining free of fear, pretension, and self-consciousness. And while I agree that often the thing that holds a community together is some common element or characteristic, wouldn't it be powerful if the main common motive was to simply know, care, and love others.
I think you captured a really important aspect of community that we often overlook, and that is our personal choice and committment to the community. I think that sometimes we view community the same way we view love or marriage, we want it to "happen to us" and in our idealistic minds we sometimes think that when it's right or when it happens, it won't be hard, we won't have to work at it. But that's simply not true, there is a choice that we must make to be committed ourselves. Being in community can only go so far before we must make that sort of a choice to committ, and that is when the real benefits will begin to appear. Otherwise we end up with a series of shallow and transient relationships, we hang out and have fun until there's some sort of a problem or conflict and because we have no committment, no investment, we just move on. I've said enough, but I really appreciate your thoughts on this Chris.
Colter
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