Following are some recent thoughts I shared in correspondence with an acquaintance who had shared with me about community. Today, I share these thoughts with you. In writing them, they appeared to flow out of somewhere deeper than my mind. I edited some for this format but retained the content, but first some words of wisdom by the late Jewish Philosopher, Martin Buber, in his classic I and Thou (Trans. E. Kaufmann) -
Inscrutably involved, we live in the currents of universal reciprocity.
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Community is not in a place-or-time. Not a gathering anytime. Community happens or not. Collecting together in a setting can make it possible to enjoy community, but this is not assured. But gathering together can help create community.
Imagine ten people sitting together. All are apparently talking or listening. Some are in-community, some not.
Community is a larger whole we are taken up into if prepared... to be in-community, we are community - not a or the - in that moment of time.
Some people may be viewed as less community-orientated, others more, while the less can be as or more in-community. Of course, who knows unless one has more subtle discernment beyond appearances. If one does, they do not need to speak of it. Regardless, we are already one, all a single I-Thou waiting to walk up out of the basement.
If prepared, one can experience deep community apart from others, but we are not prepared by 'church' or 'society' for this, so few realize this.
We need to be both with others and alone with ourselves. Persons will differ in the degree of each need.
Community happening points me - us to that Light within each other that we are - and there is finally no other Presence.
I agree community is - or can - be messy. Such messiness is variable based on how attached one is to how others view oneself or 'shoulds' and 'oughts'... how well the mirror has been polished.
Note: Polishing the mirror is a Buddhist concept of spiritual practice to clear away the afflictions, or defilements, within our minds, so Buddha Nature can shine unimpeded. The less we retain suffering within our mind, the more the Heart can shine. As I have written here in the past, we are mirrors for each other. We come to know ourselves more fully through the reflection in true meeting with others. Hence, spiritual community is a collective-happening of mirrors, or mirroring.
We are all wounded, some of us in ways we have not begun to see or, maybe, allow ourselves to see, but love happens in the wound and outside it.
Life is process, not an object. We cannot locate spirit, only things. So, we cannot locate community as happening or process or experience. And it is okay that it does not always happen when together or apart.
In my present living situation is a relaxing into the way of peace for myself, not feeling a need to live up to anyone's idea of anything... to trust God is to trust our deepest Self, our Heart, and we can relax into playing a little flute, even if others are playing a big trombone.
Living in quiet peace is a gift to others, self, and God.
*Brian K. Wilcox, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, can be ordered through major online booksellers or the publisher AuthorHouse.
