Entering Community
Jean Vanier
"When people enter community, especially from a place of loneliness in a big city or from a place of aggression and rejection, they find the warmth and the love exhilarating. This permits them to start lifting their masks and barriers and to become vulnerable. They may enter into a time of communion and great joy.
But then too, as they lift their masks and become vulnerable, they discover that community can be a terrible place, because it is a place of relationship; it is the revelation of our wounded emotions and of how painful it can be to live with others, especially with some people. It is so much easier to live with books and objects, television, or dogs and cats! It is so much easier to live alone and just do things for others, when one feels like it."
Source: Community and Growth
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7 comments:
We were created for relationship and so it would seem that it should come much easier...but from the beginning of our time on this ball: we have struggled to be related: to each other and to the creator. Makes me wonder how incredible heaven is going to be when we just get back to being with each other!
Wow. This is incredibly insightful and incredibly, morosely sad, all at once.
We are all cut from the same cloth, and most of us wear similar masks. Why is it, do you suppose, we have such an awful time relating, in kind, loving ways, consistently?
I quoted this today too - good stuff, eh?
:) awesome, and so true
So true.
Hope, you've heard me say that this journey is about finding our way back to the "garden" experience. Our soul's desire is to once again have that same kind of relationship with G-d that we once enjoyed in the beginning. Another part of the journey is that of self-discovery. When our souls were placed into human bodies and we were born, we lost sight of who we are, at our very essence or core. So not only do we journey back to Him who created us, we journey back to ourselves and the people we journey with become our community. May your journey today be a peaceful one. :) Love you lots. from a Not So Anonymous Friend PS. I read a quote the other day, will have to find where I read it cause I can't remember the author, but they said something to the effect that "the facades we put up show the world our potential but our reality is revealed in our children". Interesting, eh?
so true...i find in my own life that i isolate and withdraw when life gets tough instead of seeking out friends to find comfort and peace. i bury my head in my books, puzzles and computer...comfortable behind typed words rather than speaking to someone face to face. it's easier...but much less rewarding. i'm learning to come out from my shell and build those relationships. it hurts. its embarrassing. its shameful. its funny. its enlightening. its difficult. but...its pure joy.
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