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In a little book called "Community," Henri Nouwen writes:
Community is a basic need and hunger of the human heart. We are created for community, but often we do not experience it in the individualistic and competitive cultures that shape our lives. Community is a place of acceptance, intimacy and vulnerability, where we can bear fruit in solidarity with others and be the body of Christ for the sake of the world. It is a place of care and celebration, the place where our wounds and weaknesses are exposed, a sheltered place for the confession of sin and brokenness, and a house of love where we can receive forgiveness and offer it in return.
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was among those who framed the concept of community as what he termed the Beloved Community. King asserted that “all life is interrelated.” This interrelatedness was rooted, for King, in the fundamental belief in the kinship of all persons and the whole Creation. He believed that all life is part of a single process; all persons are sisters and brothers, and we all have a place in the Beloved Community. Because all of us are interrelated, one cannot harm another without harming oneself. We can continue to pursue Dr. King’s vision of the Beloved Community by making a sincere commitment to community-building and social engagement.
The vision of Beloved Community rises from a commitment to following the Bible’s most important commandments: to love God and love our neighbors, in whom we see the face of God. Beloved Community is the community that loves as God intends: where truth is told and hierarchies of human value are dismantled, where each person and culture is protected and honored as an equally beloved part of the family of God, and where we counter human selfishness – the true root of sin and racism – with the selfless love of Jesus.
Pastor C. Anthony Hunt, Beloved Community Cooperative Parish, Baltimore
Some questions to ponder and use to engage one another in conversation:
- What does community mean to you?
- Why is community important?
- When and where have you experienced community?
- What contributes to a sense of community?
- What makes maintaining a sense of community difficult?
- In these lingering days of a fractured sense of community gripping our congregations and the whole global community, what could intentional nurturing of Beloved Communities look like?
- How could we encourage and engage one another in dreaming about ways to bring the Beloved Community more fully into being?
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