Living in Community
“True community in any context requires a transcendent third thing that holds both me and thee accountable to something beyond ourselves...”
Parker Palmer in The Courage to Teach
“We know that where community exists it confers upon its members identity, a sense of belonging, and a measure of security. It is in communities that the attributes that distinguish us as humans, as social creatures, are nourished. Communities are the ground level generators and preservers of values and ethical systems. The ideals of justice and compassion are nurtured in communities.”
John Gardner
“Community is not just something that is nice to have. It is one of the keys to survival.”
Susan Tieger, Psychotherapist
My family of origin was composed of six people, five of them female. We had one car, one bathroom, one television and one telephone. Everyone except my grandmother had to share their bedroom with at least one other person. To say we lived in close quarters is an understatement. There was no privacy and no personal space. My sister and I even shared a closet. Did we fight? Yes. I remember one occasion when I was a teenager yakking on the phone with my boyfriend, when my dad stormed in the front door, charged at me, jerked the phone out of my hand and slammed it down. He then proceeded to yell for five minutes about how he’d tried to call for over an hour and finally gave up and drove home. He was purple with rage and I was put on telephone restriction---no calls at all for six weeks. Imagine telling your teenager that today. My family was not a democracy; there was a definite hierarchy and a set of rules defined and enforced by those at the top. Living in community is tough even when people love each other.
All of us exist within circles of relatedness: home, work, school, social life, church or temple, neighborhood, and so on. Some of us could list many more, some fewer, but the point is, very few of us exist in a vacuum, or even alone. As mammals, we thrive best in community with like-minded others. Living in community requires that we exercise a modicum of respect and tolerance for one another, and practice at least minimal civility; to fail to do so will fracture the community.
Living and working with others is never easy and it is not meant to be. It is in the act of rubbing against one another’s sharp edges that we hone our ability to negotiate the world in an acceptable manner. My father was not a model of respect and tolerance, nor was the rest of my family, but what I learned there was that I am not the center of the universe and my needs and desires are no more important than those of others. Learning to give and take, to accept and even appreciate differences, and to support each other as individuals, are lessons that living in close quarters will teach. I wonder whether we are teaching our children those lessons today.
Keeping the faith,
Jane
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