:: Friday Five :: Week 13 :: Community ::

:: Friday Five :: Week 13 :: Community ::
How to participate: 1) Join holy memes and kosmic blog starters

This week's questions are by Zoe. Thank you so much!

 1. What has community come to mean in your life?

Community...Still almost a foreign word to me. I have isolated myself most of my life with just one or two friends. This past couple of years is actually the first time I've had community outside my little family (the best community of all!).

What it has come to mean to me is that I'm not alone. It has been difficult for me to learn to reach out and accept not only help, but love from others. Community has shown me that I don't have to be perfect to be loved and accepted, and that I don't have to expect others to be perfect to love and accept them either.  

2. How have you become a party of a community? When did you know  you were a part of that community?

 It started with the secular homeschooling community in my area... They were so friendly and non-judgemental. I knew I was part of that community when there was a problem between me, a new member, and a long-time member, and they didn't let me run away. I wanted to. I was WAY out of my comfort zone! I don't like conflict and never had trouble believing I don't belong, but they supported me and loved me and kept in contact with me and assured me we would work it out. 

Shortly after that, one of the members of said homeschooling group introduced me to my spiritual teacher, Joey Klein. Joey has helped build a wonderful spiritual community in this area, even though he is not from here. It is beautiful to see it grow and expand to include people from all over the country. 

As with the other group, for me it took time to build the trust with this teacher and this community, but it has been such an amazing journey! I am learning that people are good and kind and decent and generous and want to help. They want to be of service, they want to be there for others.  

I have always been one that wants to help, but I realized I was denying others the same opportunity by being so strong and independent. I didn't realize for a long time that people really want and need to feel needed and useful. When they can't fix your problem, they can at least feel better by cooking you a meal. They feel like they've helped and contributed. That is important, I realize now, but I didn't used to.  

There is also the Zaadz community, where I am stretching my wings and learning to reach even further beyond my comfort zone to a truly global community of real people, real faces. 

3. How important is it to you that your community be a religious, faith, or spiritual community?  What life experiences have influenced how you feel about this?

I am having a ball with having a spiritual community and having a group of people I can discuss concepts and share ideas with who understand what I'm talking about. But having said that, community is not just about having religion or spirituality in common. My homeschooling groups are secular and inclusive. There are people of all faiths and no faith. They are all good and decent people. Some of us are quietly tolerant of others' beliefs, and others of us are fully supportive and enjoy the beauty of the tapestry. 

The experiences that have influenced my feelings about community have been ones of being on the outside, of being ostracized. Every since I was a little child, I have been shunned by vocal Christians. There were kids at school who were not allowed to play with me because I was Mormon. The Jehovas Witness girl and I stayed in many a recess so we didn't get our asses kicked (again). I used to get beat up every day all the way home from school by the good Christian children of Bellflower. 

Then as I got a little older, we started going to a metaphysical church. This was a beautiful experience. I LOVED it there. It felt like home for my heart. In fact, this is where my true spiritual foundation comes from.  Interestingly, the Mormon teens busted out the windows of this church because their youth leader had said this was a place of great evil. Sad. It was a place of great love and community. In fact, I was about 8 years old when we started going there, and I am still in contact with one of my teachers from there. She is very old now. The other teachers have all passed on. 

When I was a teen, after the metaphysical church closed, I started going to a Pentecostal church with a friend. I went there for quite a while because I wanted to be Christian. Not because I believed the tennets of Christianity as it was presented, but because I thought I *should* be Christian so I would be 'normal'  and so I could be a good American. What a head trip! On the way home from church every Sunday and Wednesday, I used to pray that we would crash and I would die before I had the chance to sin again. But even then it was too late because in my heart of hearts I didn't embrace the 'one true way'-ness of it all. I didn't really believe that there was only one way to God. What a conundrum. 

So these experiences influenced my life from early on, and I have always believed that community is much more than just a common religion. Community can be made from ANY shared trait or experience. I belong to the human community. We all have that in common.  No one gets left behind.

It has taken me a long time to make my peace with God and with Jesus, but I am grateful for the experiences I've had because it has brought me to a level of great compassion. Everything happens for a reason.

4. What does 'service to community' mean to you?

I really liked Andi's answer to this question!  Ditto.

I think the way we choose to live is service to our community. I think that being the example, being the change we wish to see in the world is the greatest community service there is. 

The world is my community, so I try to live my life in service to what the global community needs. I strive to live a life of peace, love, compassion, reverence. I am a vegan, not because I didn't enjoy the occassional steak or burger, but because it is the compassionate choice for not just the animals, but for my human family and it's ability to survive on this planet.  I don't spray pesticides on my lawn because I don't want to poison my Earth. She is a living organism. And on and on. 

5. Have you had any experiences where 'performing' Service within a community became a life-altering event?

Absolutely! Every service is a life-altering event, whether we are aware of it or not.

In high school I sang in a girl's choir. We were really good and did everything in 4-part harmony.  Once a year we would travel to some far-off place and spend a week performing there. One year we went to Boston and performed at a children's hospital, a juvenile boys prison, and a mental institution, among other places. Like I've said in other posts, I was not one to cry as a youngster, but I cried harder on that trip than I ever had before, or ever did for a long time after. I was so deeply touched by the people we served and the circumstances they had. 

When I was 9 or 10, the metaphysical church did Project Love in our community, which was adopting needy families for the holidays. We adopted like 200 families and hand-delivered boxes of food and gifts to each home. I remember how lonely and sad and frightened some of the people were that we made deliveries to. It really touched my heart and made a difference in my life to have participated in that. 

As an adult, I know that I grew up a 'needy' child, but as a child, doing service projects like this made me feel rich. I never knew how poor we were because we were always involved with doing something for others.  My mom ALWAYS gave at church, even if it was her last three dollars. She trusted the Universe to provide. If she had nothing to give, she would make something or do something or clean something. She even made clothes once for my principal at school- even underwear! - as a thank you for what my principal did for our family one year... (I think the principal hired my mom to make some clothing too, as a way to help us out financially and because my mom is an excellent seamstress ...)

I told my kidergarten class there was no Santa. We couldn't afford presents that year and my mom didn't want me to think I was a bad girl, so she told me there was no Santa.  My teacher - and my classmates- were PISSED OFF that I'd said this. I didn't understand that it was bad... Santa had never meant anything to me anyway and I didn't know he did to other kids. I never got what I wanted, so as far as I was concerned Santa was a mean jerk if he was real. 

Well I got made to stay after school for this transgression and the principal called my mom and made her come down to have a meeting.

As it turns out, the principal's Synagogue was looking for a needy family to adopt. They ended up delivering several huge bags full of wrapped gifts for my brother and I for Christmas. That has always stayed with me too- the way the Jewish community helped a family celebrate Christmas.

THAT, my friends, is what community is all about.  No boundaries, no division.