Experiencing God - Two Poles of Community 18

Human spiritual longing comprises of two needs: for meaning and purpose, and belonging and love.  One could experience some kind of belonging and love without meaning and purpose.  As long as things stay in the realm of personal experience, meaning and purpose is not to be found.  It is only when the experience bears fruit, when it connects one to the rest of the world in service, that the sense of meaning and purpose finds its birth.

Gerald May “Will and Spirit”

When it comes to community and what we hope to experience from being a part of community, two things are necessary.  Gerald May, in his book “Will and Spirit” calls these two things our deep spiritual longings; spiritual in the sense that all people, regardless of their faith orientation, would want and expect to find them in the community to which they belong.  John Vanier refers to them as the two poles of community.  They are (1) Meaning and Purpose and (2) Belonging and Love

No community, whether they are described as a family or a gathering of persons for a specific purpose, will operate effectively as community unless these two poles are present.  In some communities, one of these qualities may be more prevalent than the other, but the other pole must be present to some degree.  For example, a grouping of persons geared to action for a specific task will probably have a greater intensity of “meaning and purpose” to move it forward in the world.  Another grouping of persons who are meeting to enhance a certain way of life or to grow in fellowship with one another will probably place their emphasis on “Belonging and Love”.  Regardless, the opposite pole will need to be present and active to create what we would consider to be community. 

Community is a complex structure.  We may as well face that fact up-front.  What makes community complex is the fact that it is made up of people with, seemingly, an unlimited variety of personality qualities.  I've read that there are 174 varieties of bamboo.  One variety blossoms every 143 years.  To understand bamboo, considerable research is necessary.  Well imagine how much study would be necessary to understand people who make up community.  The variety and combination of characteristics and needs would truly be mind-boggling. 

In establishing community, it is never a matter of sitting down and saying:  Let’s bring in activities that will enhance “meaning and purpose” and programs that will give us a sense of “belonging and love”, and we will have a perfect community.  The fact is we all have different levels of needs in each of these areas, and being community requires that we be sensitive, as best we can, to those different level of needs in our members.  In addition, as we begin to look at these two poles of community, we discover that there is a complex interplay that happens between them that we cannot always control, at least as much as we may want.  This will become clear as we continue with this discussion on community.

First, let’s take a deeper look at the qualities of these two poles of community.  To explain the first, “meaning and purpose” I have referenced an article from Fr. Jim Sullivan’s book, “Journey to Freedom”.

One of my stronger expressive-assertive needs is one that has deep roots in my human nature.  I need to feel that my life makes sense.  I need to know that my life has meaning: proximate meaning, here and now; ultimate meaning---meaning that lasts into eternity.

I have a longing, if I’m honest with myself, for prestige.  I need to know that people in my world consider me to be a person of worth, someone whose life makes a difference.  It’s hard on me to be “lost” in a crowd, to be considered just another person.  When I think that people see me that way, I feel an awful emptiness.  I need those around me to appreciate me as someone special.  I long for my neighbours and fellow workers to see me as a person of worth, as someone who makes a real contribution to their world.

It is hard for me to fulfill this need if I do not have real job satisfaction.  If I feel that my role is not an important one, that the “real action” is somewhere else, then I feel poorly about myself---even though my job, objectively speaking, may be one of importance.  And the same is true when I feel that what I am doing is the “bottom of the barrel” I don’t feel that I’m someone special.  I feel like a clod.  I need job satisfaction, role satisfaction.  I need to sense that I am appreciated, that my life makes a difference in my world.

The roles we play, the goals we establish, the actions we undertake are the things that meet our need for meaning and purpose.  They are the things that recognize our gifts and talents, and the opportunities to express them.  When we do this in love, then something good happens in community.  Please hang onto these words “when we do this in love”.  Recognizing and expressing our talents and gifts in love gives us, as members of community, the meaning and purpose that we seek and require.  But we must recognize, first of all, that these are gifts, and secondly we must offer these gifts for the good of others.  When our roles, our goals, and our actions are performed for reasons other than the good of others, in other words for egotistical reasons, then they create an adverse effect on our need for belonging and love.  This brings us to the second pole “Belonging and Love”. 

To get a sense of “belonging and love” we have to go beyond fraternity, social activities and entertainment.  Belonging and love encompasses the whole person.  A sense of belonging and love in community implies a sense of being at home, feeling of safely and security, to be comfortable in one’s own skin.  This is the environment of community where well-being and growth can take place.  To bring out this broader sense of “belonging and love”, I have quoted an article from a book “Please Understand Me” called “Different Drums and Different Drummers”.

"If I do not want what you want, please try not to tell me that my want is wrong.  Or if I believe other than you, at least pause before you correct my view.  Or if my emotion is less than yours, or more, given the same circumstances, try not to ask me to feel more strongly or weakly.  Or yet if I act, or fail to act, in the manner of your design for action, let me be.

I do not, for the moment at least, ask you to understand me.  That will come only when you are willing to give up changing me into a copy of you. 

I may be your spouse, your parent, your offspring, your friend, or your colleague.  If you will allow me any of my own wants, or emotions, or beliefs, or actions, then you open yourself, so that some day these ways of mine might not seem so wrong, and might finally appear to you as right – for me.  To put up with me is the first step to understand me.  Not that you embrace my ways as right for you, but that you are no longer irritated or disappointed with me for my seeming waywardness.  And in understanding me you might come to prize my difference from you, and, far from seeking to change me, preserve and even nurture those differences."  

Now once we understand this broadened sense of “belonging and love”, we can begin to see even more clearly the interplay that happens between it and our need for meaning and purpose.  As I said before, we have a need to recognize and express our gifts and talents to find meaning and purpose in our lives and our life in community.  It is out of love that we offer our gifts and talents to others, but we cannot impose them on others.  We can propose, but not impose.  To do so, we have shifted from love --- to power.  And the cause of much fallout in community comes from the misuse of power.  It undermines the fulfillment of our need for belonging and love, and it can creep in, in the most subtle ways.

For the contemplative, the way of discovering meaning and purpose is to discover how to be of service, and the service that leads to belonging and love is through surrender.
Gerald May “Will and Spirit”