About Community Spirit

It’s can be difficult to define exactly what Community is, like the human spirit it’s not easily defined and may look different form your point of view.  I like to think of it as “friendship without obligation”.

Some Quotes about Community

Some people think they are in community, but they are only in proximity. True community requires commitment and openness. It is a willingness to extend yourself to encounter and know the other.”  —David Spangler

“The team exists to accomplish a result. The community exists to support its members while they fulfill their purpose. . . . When partnerships, management teams, and organizations build communities, they tap into a greater and deeper reservoir of courage, wisdom, and productivity.” —Peter Gibb

“In most vital organizations, there is a common bond of interdependence, mutual interest, interlocking contributions, and simple joy.” —Max DePree

“True belonging is born of relationships not only to one another but to a place of shared responsibilities and benefits. We love not so much what we have acquired as what we have made and whom we have made it with.” —Robert Finch

“Individuality doesn’t just mean individualism—standing alone. It means developing one’s unique gifts, and being able to share them for the enjoyment of oneself and others.” —Frances Moore Lappe

“The process of really being with other people in a safe, supportive situation can actually change who we think we are. . . . And as we grow closer to the essence of who we are, we tend to take more responsibility for our neighbors and our planet.” —Bill Kauth

“The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community.” —William James

“We know that where community exists in confers upon its members identity, a sense of belonging, and a measure of security. . . . Communities are the ground-level generators
and preservers of values and ethical systems.” —John Gardner

Pseudocommunity is “an unconscious, gentle process whereby people who want to be loving attempt to be so by telling little white lies, by withholding some of the truth about themselves and their feelings in order to avoid conflict. Pseudocommunity is conflict-avoiding; true community is conflict-resolving.” —M. Scott Peck

“The greatest challenge of community life is to create synthesis, embracing diversity in a unified whole, resolving differences with the healing spirit of love and dedication to the good of the whole.” —Corinne McLaughlin and Gordon Davidson

“Equality comes in realizing that we are all doing different jobs for a common purpose. That is the aim behind any community. The very name community means let’s come together to recognize the unity. Come … unity.” —Swami Satchidananda

“Ritual affirms the common patterns, the values, the shared joys, risks, sorrows, and changes that bind a community together. Ritual links together our ancestors and descendants, those who went before with those will come after us.” —Starhawk

What my iMac tells me about Community

What Mother Teresa tells me about Community

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God;
It was never between you and them anyway.