Henri Nouwen wrote some interesting words on Community that helped me to realize why my expectations of Community were never met. My expectations were faulty - they were never meant to be realized. It is better that they were never met. It made me dig deeper inside myself - where the solution lay waiting to be found.
"Solitude greeting solitude, that's what community is all about. Community is not the place where we are no longer alone but the place where we respect, protect, and reverently greet one another's aloneness. When we allow our aloneness to lead us into solitude, our solitude will enable us to rejoice in the solitude of others. Our solitude roots us in our own hearts. Instead of making us yearn for company that will offer us immediate satisfaction, solitude makes us claim our center and empowers us to call others to claim theirs. Our various solitudes are like strong straight pillars that hold up the roof of our communal house. Thus, solitude always strengthens community."
Excerpt from "Bread For The Journey".
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Hmmmm
I need to mull that over in my mind for awhile. But..you did get me thinking and digging deeper into "me."
That's exactly what happened to me when I read it. It took me four days to be ready to post it.
As the four individual legs connect to the whole of the Wolf, as the 32 legs, connected, become the Pack.
Slitude? Hmmm...I'm not egotistical enough to think that I know better than Nouwen....
Well....crap, maybe I do...not saying I'm right though.
Yes, we "greet each other in our solitude"......but then once accepted, by scent, politics, mutual need....etc, we become more than the solitary individual.
We're all searching for our mirror image....and we all find that Person....or Persons throughout a Life well lived.
Me? I'm a true Loner that needs company.
Sorry for the angst...just had a codeine and two beers...think I'll dance.....slowly.
Hi, Wollf, great to hear from you. I think we all need a community to belong to - and it certainly is more fun dancing with a partner. I don't think that is what Nouwen means.
And I absolutely love being in a community of people where I can forget about my aloneness for awhile.
The way I am reading it is that you have to come to terms with your aloneness - learn to live with it so to speak - so that you are not trying to escape from it "in community".
Further thoughts on the subject?
Pure clarity Rose. Aloneness is not always bad - just getting used to and then embracing it. Sometimes it is forced upon you and that is hard.
Wollf - I disagree with your thinking (respectfully of course) that we are all searching for our mirror images. That is the last person I want to spend time or a life with. I already know my likes, dislikes, opinions, shortcomings, etc. I want somebody with differences and uniqueness in a relationship. I would be bored and stifled with someone like me. I need the growth to fully live.
Hmm, how can I agree with everything that DW said and what Wollf said at the same time. But I do. This is going to be difficult to explain.
I remember shortly after I married my second husband, he got upset with me for something I said. It made me feel bad that he was upset with me. I remember saying Sincerely "You think you got it bad - I gotta live with me twenty-four hours a day." Needless to say he didn't stay mad at me.
But, on another level, the parts of him I loved most co-exist in me - buried beneath all these other parts of me that keep getting in my way.
Apart from that, though, I think we loved who we were capable of being in the company of one another.
He put me in touch with a part of me that I liked being; and I have no doubt that I did the same for him.
This isn't something you can make happen - it either does or doesn't. It just Is.
It's been fun dialoguing with you guys on this interesting subject.
I just thought of something else to add to what I just said. I have a granddaughter and a great-niece who are so much like me it isn't funny.
I find that this allows me to understand their behavior and where they are coming from more easily - but until I have forgiven that behavior in myself, it can be challenging to say the least.
"I think we loved who we were capable of being in the company of one another."
Oh Rose...that is it exactly! I wish I had thought of that. Thanks for your ingenious insight (as usual).
You just keep making me dig deeper and deeper into M.E.
Rose..wanted to share with you my meditation reading today.
"Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality" Nikos Kazantzakis
"We need either to become more comfortable with 'waiting' to fill what's empty with what's authentic or become just willing to accept the exquisite fullness of nothing."
This hit home with me today and kind of touches on this posting. Thanks for letting me share.
Makes me think of the wonderful book by Sue Monk Kidd "When The Heart Waits".
I've spent a lot of years running from the emptiness within. It feels good to finally embrace it and just sit with it.
It is a creative emptiness - a fact which took me by surprise - not the negative experience I expected when I spent all those years in flight.
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