NEWSLETTER

THE ESSENCE OF COMMUNITY

As those of you who have been with me for awhile know I have been sitting in the middle of the question, how can we build healthy, vital community? The two most often voiced difficulties mothers keep bringing up are the difficulty of maintaining a spiritual practice now that they are home with children and the difficulty of feeling isolated. I too experienced loneliness when I was a young mother. I am not talking about deep existential loneliness here. I am talking about the human need for contact with and support from other humans.

The question of how to form supportive, healthy community has been a question my family has carried at least as far back as my father's father. He visioned a commune and my father continued to hold that vision by buying a piece of property for that purpose. My brother and I both explored the viability of community encountering many dead ends. The dream did not materialize until my father moved in with me last month. Now that we are together my home has become an open community dedicated to making my father's last days, weeks, months rich and beautiful. All decisions, words and actions are held up to that objective. This is a no rancor zone. The sensitivity of the dying person is a lot like the sensitivity of the birthing mother. Just as you would not fill a room where birth is taking place with anger or despair you would not fill the air of a dying person's room with discord or rancor.

Friends of my father and family have been moving in and out of this house since my father moved in. Some stay for a meal, some stay for days to talk and express their appreciation to my father. My job is to make each person feel welcome, by setting the tone of good will. I feed them, listen to them and try to make them as comfortable as possible. They are feeding my father with their love and I feed them with whatever is called for. My job is to be the still center. The grace and harmony created by this allowing and commitment to harmony is truly amazing. Friends and family embraced into this community walk away having experienced a healing here. Those of us fortunate enough to stay in this environment have even deeper healings-this includes me and my father.

In this state of allowing I am learning that community is whoever is there at the moment. Each person creates a different texture and color to the environment. People come and go, the environment is always changing. I now see that one of the misconceptions I was laboring under was the idea that community needed to be the same people continuously. In reality it is a moving flowing river. As long as I embrace what and who is there before me I have the makings of healthy community. Community is the attitude I carry with me. It is a heart that is open to whoever and whatever is present in the moment.

I think that community is being redefined in the 21st century. Community used to be defined as family and tribe. We now know we are all part of this Earth together. As we embody this awareness community becomes broader and deeper. It stretches to include neighbors and strangers. Wherever you are is the still center of the community. Wherever two or more are gathered. If you make a commitment to harmony your community will be harmonious. We still need to honor our ancestors and family karma is still unique and powerful for all of us. We still need friends or family to bring us soup when we are sick or listen to us when we are triumphant or troubled. Yet, as we broaden our definition of community to include whoever is in our immediate environment, infinite possibilities open up to us and loneliness dissolves into the nothingness from which it came.

Jacqueline

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