COMMUNITY
The Deeper Meaning of Community
Sharing the Sacred Space
What is Community?
Oxford dictionary says that community is: “a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common.”
It also says that community is: “a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.”
We have our physical, geographic, shared-interest communities and we have the communities based on a feeling — the feeling of belonging. Unless we move and take up new residence or unless our interests change significantly, we keep our local communities. While our participation in such communities might fluctuate at times, these are communities that are more solid and concrete. Conversely, our felt communities are the ones where we are invited into them with a warm embrace and reverence. These are the spaces and places where others exist that remind us that we are not alone in our unique expressions of ourselves. I suppose it could be said that the concrete communities are the homes of our bodies; the felt communities are homes of our hearts.
I think community is more than both of these definitions, though. “Comm-unity” is also the act of communing through unity. Meaning, we share our intimate thoughts and feelings with others for a sense…
