Something’s been bugging me about the commonly held ideas of community. I think most of them are based on what we think we should do rather than on what we want to do. On the surface, that seems fine. We should, for example, feed the hungry. We should support our neighbors, our community. I’d even say that it is enough just to do what we should do. But I don’t think that is community. I think that is charity, and charity is good. Community is more.
Community is charity from the heart rather than from the conscience.
When we do what we should, it doesn’t matter who the human being with a life is on the other side of our doing. We don’t need to think about how they feel about their needs or the fact they can’t meet their own needs. We can just write a check or volunteer a few hours and the raw need is met for now.
I am beginning to believe that real community begins with getting to know people. No agenda. No work. No charity. Just taking moments here and there to come to see them as people, know their names, build a history. Time with a person leads to knowing. Knowing leads to liking. And I am discovering if you give people a little of your time you will naturally come to like them – even people you might first consider unlikable.
Neighbors are a great example of this. Neighbors are people who live near you. That may be the only thing you start out having in common. Vicki and I are making a lot of friends in our neighborhood and we recently talked about how different we all are from each other in many ways. Yet, because we have taken time with each other, we have gotten to know each other. Having gotten to know each other, we like each other. Now that we like each other we WANT to do nice things for each other. And when one of them does something nice for us it is twice or three times better BECAUSE we know they wanted to do it.
Having a heart to do the right thing comes from community. And the way to like people is to take time with them. It doesn’t even take hours – though you may discover that as you come to like them you will want to spend hours with them.
I believe it is more likely that you will come to like a person by giving them your time to get to know them than if you gave your money or time to help them first. I think true, from the heart, community can do more than charity. I can be wrong. And if you decide to take time to find out for yourself, please let me know what you learn.
