Community

St. Benedict teaches:  life in community keeps us on the path.

Sister Joan Chittister teaches: *

Our society is profoundly individualistic – but we can learn to live in community.  Community is the place where we can work together to create a just a gentle world.

Life in a spiritual community calls us to walk with each other, hold each other up, and bear with each other. In community, we encourage each other on our common journey.

In community, we learn to step back to make room for the needs and gifts of others.  Life in community means that others will see our weaknesses, but also welcome our gifts.

In  community, we can discover the effect of a spoiled ozone layer on everyone else – and then work to save others as well as ourselves. In  community, we can see the evils of sexism, with its unnatural limitations on both women and men – and then work to move the community toward genuine equality. In community we see the lie of over-zealous  patriotism – and then can work to make our own nation more kind.

Community is always the place where we can work together to create a just and gentle world.

What is your true spiritual community?

 What does your community give you?  What do you give to it?

On to step 4:
Humility…

*   For more, see Wisdom Distilled from the Daily, by Joan Chittister OSB
(Harper San Francisco, 1990).