What is Community?

Our Meetings are each a community. Each is situated in wider communities – the Area Meeting, the Yearly Meeting, and let us never forget the wider community, beyond Friends, in which our Quaker communities sit.

Community, as a word, is obviously related to commune. As a noun, a commune is a group of people that share something, usually property. As a verb, with a slightly different (but closely related) etymology, it is often used in a spiritual sense for a sort of silent communication, often with something bigger than a person – as in communing with nature, a divinity, and so on. It can also refer to other sorts of intimate communication, or taking of communion in the Christian Eucharist.

Another related word is common. A commune hold their property in common. A community is a group bound together by something in common.

Sharing Joy

When we see two people in love, we can rejoice in it and share it even though we are not, ourselves, part of that love.

When someone has a passionate interest that we do not share, we might have little interest in hearing them talk about it at great length, but we can still take joy in the joy it gives them.

Even where we have been hurt and cannot engage in romantic love, or where romantic interest is no part of our own makeup, even where we have been traumatised by that in which someone else is interested, we can share their joy.

True Religion

True religion raises up,
      It does not cast down.

True faith frees the mind,
      It does not constrain.

True divinity heals,
      It does not rend apart.

True friendship fosters growth,
      It does not hem you in.

True love enables life,
      It does not enjoin unlooked-for change.

True forgiveness looks forward,
      It does not look to settle scores.

True knowledge illuminates ignorance,
      It does not give certainty.

True insight shows your inner self,
      It is not limited to the outer world.

Hold fast to the true, and be wise to the false.
Love your friends, and uphold life.
Forgive as you can, but not falsely.
Be free in your mind, and rejoice in the freedom of others.
Illuminate as you would be illuminated,
And share all, giving and receiving.

Written February 2019