On Community
John McKnight — on community
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Sufi Story — you can only learn what you already know
(Every community’s ultimate wisdom lies within itself)
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Quotes on Community and the Power of Conversation
“I was in California a few years ago, and I had never been to California before. I’m from Iowa and I’d never seen the redwood trees other than in picture books. I was amazed at their height, feeling thankful for the the redwood trees, and thinking how deep their roots must go to hold up a tree so tall. And in meeting for worship that very day, a Friend rose and said something like, ‘You know these redwood trees? You’d think their roots go really deep, but their roots go out really wide. They spread out to each other and entangle with each other, and give each other support and that’s how they stand and grow so tall, and that’s how they weather the storms.’
“That’s what community is about! We do want our own spiritual roots to go deep, but as they grow deep, they can also be growing out and intertwining with others, supporting each other against the wind and the rain and the storms in the Spirit.
“And, as the tree grows up, the roots are still growing out. It’s not one or the other. They grow in both directions at the same time.”
(Deborah Fisch, 2003; as quoted in Practicing Peace: A Devotional Walk Through The Quaker Tradition)
“Safety in a community gets defined by how the most marginal person in the community is treated. We all believe that if people could see into our hearts and know who we really are, we too might be rejected, so we notice how those at the margins are welcomed.” (Emily Sander)
“In true community we will not choose our companions. For our choices are so often limited by self-serving motives. . . .
Instead our companions will be given to us by grace.
Often they will be persons who will upset our settled view of self and the world.
In fact, we might define true community as that place
Where the person you least want to live with lives. . . .”
(Parker Palmer, 1977; as quoted in Practicing Peace: A Devotional Walk Through The Quaker Tradition)
“…Individualistic material progress and the desire to gain prestige by coming out on top have taken over from the sense of fellowship, compassion and community. Now people live more or less on their own in a small house, jealously guarding their goods and planning to acquire more, with a notice on the gate that says, ‘Beware of the Dog.”
— Jean Vanier (Community and Growth)
“The response to war is to live like brothers and sisters. The response to injustice is to share. The response to despair is a limitless trust and hope. The response to prejudice and hatred is forgiveness. To work for community is to work for humanity. To work for peace is to work for a true political solution; it is to work for the Kingdom of God. It is to work to enable every one to live and taste the secret joys of the human person united to the eternal.”
— Jean Vanier (Community and Growth)
“Can we dream of a world where each person can have a place and reveal their gifts?” (Jean Vanier)
”I believe that those we most often exclude from the normal life of society, people with disabilities, have profound lessons to teach us. When we do include them, they add richly to our lives and add immensely to our world.” (Jean Vanier, Becoming Human, p. 45)
“The belief in the inner beauty of each and every human being is at the heart of all true education and at the heart of being human… To reveal someone’s beauty is to reveal their value by giving them time, attention, and tenderness. To love is not just to do something for them but to reveal to them their own uniqueness, to tell them that they are special and worthy of attention. We can express …this revelation through our open and gentle presence, in the way we look at and listen to a person, the way we speak to and care for someone. Gestures can be filled with a respect that reveals to someone their worth, even if that worth is hidden under anger, hatred, or madness.” (Jean Vanier, Becoming Human, pp. 22-23)
”The heart of a child is so easily hurt and the hurt becomes a wound around which we build walls of protection. Walls so constructed can only be breached by gentleness.” (Jean Vanier)
“It is only when we stand up, with all our failings and sufferings, and try to support others rather than withdraw into ourselves, that we can fully live the life of community.” (Jean Vanier)
“The weak teach the strong to accept and integrate the weakness and brokenness of their own lives.” (Jean Vanier)
“I am struck by how sharing our weakness and difficulties is more nourishing to others than sharing our qualities and successes.” (Jean Vanier)
“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.”
— Jean Vanier (Community and Growth)
“A community is only being created when its members accept that they are not going to achieve great things, that they are not going to be heroes, but simply live each day with new hope, like children, in wonderment as the sun rises and in thanksgiving as it sets. Community is only being created when they have recognized that the greatness of man is to accept his insignificance, his human condition and his earth, and to thank God for having put in a finite body the seeds of eternity which are visible in small and daily gestures of love and forgiveness. The beauty of man is in this fidelity to the wonder of each day.”
— Jean Vanier (Community and Growth)
“Community is a sign that love is possible in a materialistic world where people so often either ignore or fight each other. It is a sign that we don’t need a lot of money to be happy–in fact, the opposite.”
— Jean Vanier (Community and Growth)
“When people love each other, they are content with very little. When we have light and joy in our hearts, we don’t need material wealth. The most loving communities are often the poorest. If our own life is luxurious and wasteful, we can’t approach poor people. If we love people, we want to identify with them and share with them.”
— Jean Vanier (Community and Growth)
“A growing community must integrate three elements: a life of silent prayer, a life of service and above all of listening to the poor, and a community life through which all its members can grow in their own gift.”
— Jean Vanier (Community and Growth)
“God comes to us in the midst of human need, and the most pressing needs of our time demand community in response. How can I participate in a fairer distribution of resources unless I live in a community, which makes it possible to consume less? How can I learn accountability unless I live in a community where my acts and their consequences are visible to all? How can I learn to share power unless I live in a community where hierarchy is unnatural? How can I take the risks which right action demands, unless I belong to a community which gives support? How can I learn the sanctity of each life unless I live in a community where we can be persons not roles to one another?
(Parker Palmer, 1977; as quoted in Practicing Peace: A Devotional Walk Through The Quaker Tradition)
”Since our earliest ancestors gathered in circles around the warmth of a fire, conversation has been our primary means for discovering what we care about, sharing knowledge, imagining the future, and acting together to both survive and thrive.” (Juanita Brown, The World Cafe)
”‘I believe we can change the world if we start listening to one another again.’ I still believe this. I still believe that if we turn to one another, if we begin talking with each other – especially with those we call stranger or enemy – then this world can reverse its darkening direction and change for the good.” (Margaret Wheatley)
”The key to creating or transforming community, then, is to see the power in the small but important elements of being with others. The shift we seek needs to be embodied in each invitation we make, each relationship we encounter, and each meeting we attend.” (from Community–the structure of belonging, by Peter Block)
”Social fabric is created one room at a time. It is formed from small steps that ask ‘Who do we want in the room?’ and ‘What is the new conversation that we want to occur?’” (from Community–the structure of belonging, by Peter Block)
”The essential challenge is to transform the isolation and self-interest within our communities to connectedness and caring for the whole… We begin by shifting our attention from the problems of community to the possibility of community.” (Peter Block, Community: the structure of belonging)
John O’Donohue was an Irish poet and philosopher who lived in a small cottage in the West of Ireland. John appeared in the 2004 Masters Forum. He spoke of many things, including his view on the thrill of being involved in a great conversation.
“When is the last time you had a great conversation? A conversation which wasn’t just two intersecting monologues, which is what passes for conversation in this culture. When have you had a great conversation in which: you overheard yourself saying things you never knew you knew; you heard yourself receiving from somebody words that absolutely found places within you that you had thought you had lost; you and your partner ascended to a different plane; memories of the exchange continued to sing in your mind for weeks afterward?”
Conversation: O’Donohue left us with these questions from what he called a page of lost questions. He said each would lead to a great conversation.
- Is there someone walking home this evening through the streets of Leningrad that you have never met and never will meet, but whose life had an incredible interest on yours?
- At the angel bar, what stories does your angel tell about you?
- Supposin’ you were to take your heart away on your own for a day out, and that you really decided to listen to your heart, what do you think your heart would say to you?
- If you were in conversation with your heart, and you told it how actually, factually short your life is, what would your heart make you stop from doing right now?
- If it is true that nothing good is ever truly lost, what would you like to have back?
http://conversationkindling.blogspot.com/
”‘We need to depend on diversity’. . . (this) is a survival skill these days, because there’s no other way to get an accurate picture of any complex problem or system. We need many eyes and ears and hearts engaged in sharing perspectives. How can we create an accurate picture of the whole if we don’t honor the fact that we each see something different because of who we are and where we sit in the system?” (Margaret Wheatley)
“Everybody is half-dead. Everybody avoids everybody, all over the place, in most situations, most all the time. I know; I’m one of those ‘everybodys.’ And, to me, it’s terrible. And so all I’m trying to do, all the time, is just open people up so they…let themselves be open to somebody else. That is all. That’s it.” -Nina Simone
”Speak directly from your heart to the heart of your listener, as if passing the flame of a candle.” (Philip Toshio Sudo)
”If you’re really listening, if you’re awake to the poignant beauty of the world, your heart breaks regularly. In fact, your heart is made to break; its purpose is to burst open again and again so that it can hold evermore wonders.” (Andrew Harvey)
“Is it possible to become more intentional about creating spaces—in relationship, in community—where our fearful shadows can emerge into the light to be seen for what they are, where the truth and love within us can appear and make a claim on our lives?” (Parker Palmer)
“Neighbors, coworkers, and even family members can live side by side for years without learning much about each other’s lives. As a result, we lose something of great value, for the more we know about another’s story, the harder it is to hate or harm that person.” (Parker Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness, p. 123)
“Because our stories make us vulnerable to being fixed, exploited, dismissed, or ignored, we have learned to tell them guardedly or not at all… Instead of telling our vulnerable stories, we seek safety in abstractions, speaking to each other about our opinions, ideas, and beliefs rather than about our lives.” (Parker Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness, p. 123)
”One of the moral diseases we communicate to one another in society comes from huddling together in the pale light of an insufficient answer to a question we are afraid to ask.” (Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island)
”There is a fantasy abroad. It goes like this, ‘If we can resolve our conflicts, then someday we shall be able to live together in community.’ Could it be that we have it totally backward? And the the real dream should be: ‘If we can live together in community, then someday we shall be able to resolve our conflicts.’”??? (M. Scott Peck, The Different Drummer, community making and peace)
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