Some Kind of Wonder-full…

Contemplation and Community (or Lone Ranger of the Spiritual Undergrowth)

Community.   For many people, the word sparks their imagination.  A vision of a society individuals are valued and belong to a “sharing, caring” network of support.  Personally, it strikes fear into the depths of my murky soul.  I imagine a place of social conformity, a monochrome world of smiles and fakeness, nicey-nice and backstabbing.  Revolutionary Road, hardly.  Edward Scissorhands, maybe.

Many people are attracted to religion, to Church, as a means of belonging to the group.  I have never belonged, or felt the desire to belong.  As a child, I sat on the bench watching the other children play.  Naturally reserved, and with no sense of self-importance, I waited to be invited into the group.  I didn’t want to annouce myself, assuming egotistically that the group wanted me there, that I had anything to offer.  Funnily enough, I never got invited to the group (apart from when the older kids were supervising play).  Most kids are understandably unaware of anyone outside of themself.  And that was ok.

I’ve grown to love observing the group, and, having had a lot of practice, my intuitions about group dynamics are usually pretty strong.  Recently, I went to the Launch Pad at the Science Museum.  It was a Adult’s only evening, so lots of twenty-somethings were having great fun with the various gadgets and experiments.  I sampled a few, but then returned to watching the group.  Somehow, watching other’s happily exploring the world of science, sharing joyous moments with their friends, yielded far greater satisfaction to me that actually launching in and becoming part of that.

Aloneness is to me a beautiful thing.  My history teacher once misquoted Rudyard Kipling.  She said: “the true female is a cat who walks alone.” This has always stuck with me.  Perhaps I yield a sense of superiority from not belonging to the group, from never having a group of friends, but having a friend in each group instead.  The group requires compromise; compression of our individuality for the purposes of social interaction.  For some, this offers security, stabilty.  But I am far more fearful of people, their ability to harm and hurt, to freeze out, than of jumping off mountains.  As Steph Davis writes:

“For me, the thought of getting hit by icefall or falling from a rock face are totally acceptable possibilities.  The idea of being hurt by a person is not. It always suprises me to hear people talk about climbing being dangerous.  I have always felt safest alone on the side of a hard-to-reach wall or a mountain.  Although I understand that I could die in the mountains, I trust the hand of nature, and I know it will do me no harm.  People seem to change and do confusing things.  Places, on the other hand, I can count on.” [High Infatuation: A Climber's Guide to Love and Gravity]

My spiritual journey has not been a communal experience.  Church, and groups, have played little part in this inner experience and search for Truth.  Praying the “Christian” prayer at 9, the Sunday School was woefully inept to nurture the growth of these seeds.  They showed us the steps to becoming a Christian, instead of teaching us how to live and grow spiritually.  Listening to the words of the song, I “read my Bible and prayed everyday” for 7 years consecutively.  In those moments, I learnt the Scriptures, memorised and hid them in my heart.  In those years, I experienced an incomprehensible joy at dancing and singing, alone, before the Divine.  “Like a child in your sight, I dance to see your delight.”  And, leaving the Church, exploring the rich spiritual undergrowth, was again, the act of a stranger: a stranger to the group.

Why am I writing all this?  Because, over New Year, I was priviledged to share a week of community and contemplation with 8 young adults.  Despite a diversity of backgrounds, and spiritual journeys, we are linked by two factors:  we are “Young and Contemplative”.  The week was spent in the rugged beauty of Bere Island, a holy place; days punctuated by Morning, Lunchtime and Evening meditation.  Sharing silence and the beauty of creation.

I wrote once of my experience in a Quaker Meeting, that silence stills the turmoil of the soul, like the rain falling through blocked drainpipes.  All the silt and soot of everyday life drift to the bottom.  A refreshing shower.  Meditating in community something similar happened; all the stress of minor irritations, that which inevitably irks when different personalities and temperaments share space and work together, fell away in the presence of the mysterious Silence.  Bonds fraught were healed; brothers bound together.  The workings of the Holy Spirit.

Not only that, but Community didn’t lead to me becoming less myself (in a bid to keep everyone else happy and prevent conflicts); rather, buoyed by a sea of acceptance, I was able to be, to become, more myself as the week progressed.  Community is about learning to live both truthfully and peacefully with those you have no natural connection with.  Perhaps I had a natural connection with this group, that meant I could be both truthful (about my own needs and the inconvenient habits of others) and live peacefully with them.  Nevertheless, a glimpse into this world, what Community could look like, is encouraging.

John Main wrote a book called, “Community of Love”.  I’ve not read it, but the title sums up a positive vision for Community: a place of acceptance and love, where people can grow individually and together, becoming more themselves, becoming more united.  Indeed, perhaps meditation, unique by the fact it allows for both aloneness and intimacy, belonging, facilitates it.  An ideal perhaps, yet I found it true – if only for a brief moment – in Reality.