Community Matters, Part II
Community is the true nature of our relationships with people, too. Belonging to one or more communities is much less important today in our country than the next thing that we want on our list of material things we have to have. This loss of community in our neighborhoods, even our families, our cities, and our nation is obvious in the uncaring we are showing to the immigrants now being hounded by ICE and the department of Homeland Security, in the denial of Medicaid and other helpful programs that took care of the poor and more.
Community, the closeness of people around us at home or at work or in the areas where we live, helps us cope with the very real stresses of life here on earth. It is love personified, giving help when it is needed, affirming who we are, and just letting people into our lives and enjoying them. Here is how Jean Vanier, a Canadian theologian, who founded L’Arche, communities for disabled people across the world, defines community:
“One of the marvelous things about community is that it enables us to welcome and help people in a way we couldn’t as individuals. When we pool our strength and share the work and responsibility, we can welcome many people, even those in deep distress, and perhaps help them find self-confidence and inner healing. “[1] Being in community also constitutes a sense of belonging in us, a sense that we have a real place in this life, on this Earth.
The materialism that has been taking over our country since the 1980s has blinded us to our own needs and to others’ needs. For example, how are we to deal with all the changes in our country happening right now, where so many people are losing the support they had previously had to help them live on the margins—support for food, rent, medical care, and more. If “our neighbors” aren’t important to us, then we can stick with the materialism. But, if, as Jesus said, we are to love our neighbors as we love ourselves (Matthew 22:39), and we neglect our neighbors, how can we say that we are following Jesus Christ?
I have a picture in my mind of the kind of “help” that is uncaring about the person we are trying to help. It comes from a church I belonged to the 1960s. I was helping to serve hungry people lunch at our church in the Palo Alto area of California where we lived at the time. But I wasn’t talking to them at all, as if they were important to me. None of our volunteers were. This was “helping” without any love attached to it, as if feeding someone in poverty was all they needed.
Maya Angelou said it so well: “I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.” [2]So, if we’re truly welcoming the people we meet, then we are also giving them a place in our community. If I am truly interested in their lives and how they got to be where they are, then I am loving them. Our own sense of belonging helps us deal with the difficulties and challenges of life in our lives and in others’ lives.
As we live into the world as it is becoming, it is more important than ever that we work together to make this world a place where all are welcome, all have a home, all are supported by communities. I know we can’t be a community of 8 billion people, but we can help the poor and sick in this world with our resources. We can dig down and find community in our neighborhoods, cities, churches, and everywhere we look. Then, we have a place, a sense of belonging, where we are equally bonded to those surrounding us. When we are interested in another’s life, we are showing them our love. When we don’t judge others, we are giving them a place in our lives, even if we don’t agree with them. When we do what Jesus asked us to do, we are bringing love into this world that has a huge need for it. And when we love others, we learn that our life is not about who we are, but about how we can serve God and our neighbors in it.
And there we will find our purpose and the fulfillment that God always intended for us in living out our lives. He created each of us with a particular purpose for our life. And when we can actually see and live the purpose for which we were created, then our lives become so much more fulfilling and expressive of the whole of who we are.
NOTE to Post: In January this year it came to me that I am a Genesis 1:27 Christian. That God created every person on this planet, male and female, and that He loves each of us equally. As He calls us to live the life He created us for, His hope is that we will say, “Yes!” to Him and become the person He created each person to be.
[1] https://www.azquotes.com/quotes/topics/community.html
[2] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/277051-i-long-as-does-every-human-being-to-be-at
[1] https://www.azquotes.com/quotes/topics/community.html