Community
Mo Shafieeha and
Community
“Community offers the promise of belonging and calls for us to acknowledge our interdependence. To belong is to act as an investor, owner, and creator of this place. To be welcome, even if we are strangers. As if we came to the right place and are affirmed for that choice.”
“People will be accountable and committed to what they have a hand in
Kin-building is, at its heart, about finding ease and choosing to rest in others. When you have more people in your life, there is less on your individual shoulders to do and achieve. I do wish I had known sooner that it was about people just as much as it was about accomplishments.
High accomplishment and hard work evoke many reactions, but very few of them are the ones that we want. For all that we want it to be, competence is not warmth. The emotions you get for being competent— faith, gratitude, admiration — are important, but they aren’t enough to fill the void when what you lack in life is warmth, love, and communion.
James Horton • You Can Seek Love Now, Not Later
The difference with a concrete community of moral calling is that it, at the very least, forces us out of our own individuality in order to learn how to reckon with others. At its best, it calls us to be better than we are.
Understanding this distinction helps us recognize that self-acceptance, self-worth, and the common good depend not on indulging our proclivities or tastes but on growing together with our neighbours into better people.
