Building Community

Community is a beautiful idea. The notion of being surrounded by like-minded people, having enriching experiences, being supported and held. This however, is just one part of social interaction, a part that can be easy to get caught up in having often grown-up and been guided through life experiences and schooling to be outcome focussed, to have fixed expectations and/or both eyes on a goal.

To want for something, imagine it, aspire to it is not a bad thing, as humans we yearn for things that will nourish us (or we believe will nourish us) however, It can at times remove our focus from the potential before us in every moment.

Every goal or outcome as it unfolds has many opportunities and micro-acquisitions within it...this constant exchange with life, the people and things in it, is our daily work and this work comes in many shapes and sizes accompanied by a spectrum of feelings. 

In relation to the co-creation of a community, community space, collective ideas etc.. it is necessary to consider that, just as we look different, learn, think and feel differently, we have experienced many things that have brought us to where we are, we may perceive principles and values that appear to align or resonate, the fact is that we may all be in the same library but are not all in the same section, let alone book, chapter and or page. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, in fact diversity is fundamental...the point here being that perhaps a sustainable, innovative and respectful community is one that consciously makes the decision to invest in the experience of communion without which there is no community. 

These experiences, this communion, if, it is to become the foundation of an authentic, liminal space within which a group of people is held and can freely grow...then the greatest realisation or point of acceptance is perhaps that community takes work and it is not always nice, in fact it can be difficult and unwelcomed. Within it, everyone has a role to play, once limitations are removed then potential remains. 

Montessori spoke to guides and parents about meeting each child where they are at.. holding that space, affording them the opportunity to move through their experience. Similarly, within any collective, we too, echoing Montessori's sentiment must meet each person where they are. This space, this position/point of realisation, absent of judgement or criticism is perhaps the place Dante alluded to when he remarked... 'the greatest wisdom is first to love...' is this not the ultimate basis upon which community is founded.