Richard Rohr Daily Meditation: Intentional Community
August 3, 2024
When reading the below, I had to stop and consider, how do I look at community, connectedness and how I contribute to and enrich those communities which I am a part of.
Intentional Community
We never know how our small activities will affect others through the invisible fabric of our connectedness.... In this exquisitely connected world, it’s never a question of “critical mass.” It’s always about critical connections.
—Margaret J. Wheatley, Leadership and the New Science Buddhist Quaker Valerie Brown encourages an intentional and loving approach to community: As a teacher at Pendle Hill outside Philadelphia, I continue to grow in my understanding of community. A safe, brave space, Pendle Hill is where, on my better days I bring my most compassionate self forward. This compassion spirals outward as an invitation—an invitation that inclines others to do the same. In this community, I learn about connection and about sharing my vulnerability in ways that grow me, that grow others….
It's easy to have idyllic beliefs about community—that it is a place where everyone is friendly, agreeable, and polite; a place where there is no conflict, connection is easy, there are no difficult people. What I’ve discovered, however, is that more often than not, community is about conflict and about how we together navigate it. Conflict often reveals something important, allowing me to yield to something bigger and more important than protecting my ideas around right or wrong. Community calls me toward recognizing the shadow side of myself: the ways in which I am hard, distant, rigid, and unforgiving. Community shows me when I am placing my needs before others, showing up distracted or late, and taking others for granted. The opportunity I am then given is to ask essential questions: Can I be transparent and undefended without collapsing when this feedback comes my way? Can I notice, name, and investigate with open curiosity what I am feeling? Can I offer myself and others kind attention without judgment or blame? The gift of community is the mirror that reflects back to me, that offers me a chance to live into a better part of myself. Frankly, I find these essential questions to be difficult to ask. They are uncomfortable and disquieting. Not because it is the first time I have asked them but just the contrary. I have asked them many times of myself and have failed to respond in a way faithful to the call of community. I have failed to look beyond myself. I have failed to act with charity, with compassion and with brotherly love.
Christ commands of us to love thy neighbor as thyself. What greater call and response to community can there be? What greater challenge do each of us face? I often feel that this call far outweighs my abilities and my strengths. That I am being asked to do what is impossible for me to do. I realize that I am being asked just that. However, we are told:
Jesus looked at them and said to them, "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." - Matthew 19:26 So I ask God for his help, his strength and support to respond to his great commandment of love, and community.
Jesus, I need your strength and power in my life. I know apart from you, I can do nothing. I acknowledge the areas in which I feel weak and acknowledge I need to fully rely on you. Give me strength and power that I know can only come from you. Amen.