Lifeletter #141: The Glory & the Difficulty of True Community

At a farewell gathering for Jonathan and myself last week, I shared something that Coleman Barks wrote about Rumi’s community:

“The work of the dervish community was to open the heart, to explore the mystery of presence, to fiercely inquire into and express the truth, and to celebrate the glory and difficulty of being in a human incarnation.”

I read this description of community when I first came to Nelson from India, fifteen years ago, and I’ve held it in my heart ever since. People who long for community, and there are many of them, often have a naive idea of what true community asks of us. I’ve discovered a great deal, living here in the Kootenays, about how to keep the heart open, how to be truly present, and how to be transparent, in the face of both the glory and the difficulty of being human. What I have learned about this has changed me, alchemically. And my learning is still going on, day after day, night after night.

I am not the same person who arrived in this community fifteen years ago. The structure of my psyche has been altered by what I have passed through with my beloved friends, colleagues, students and clients in this community. We’ve passed through fire and water together, through births and deaths, through incredible triumphs and shattering losses. Community is not created through dreams and intentions. That’s just the beginning. Community emerges as we live together, as we work and love, as we celebrate and practice, as we create, and grieve and play.

We become real in community. Our pretenses and illusions and self-deceptions wear themselves out, if we stay deeply connected with each other. It’s very much like how the Skin Horse described it, in the Velveteen Rabbit:

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.” “Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit. “Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

My experience has been that it does hurt, sometimes a lot; and that I mind the pain less and less. We discover what true friendship is, in community, and that’s a life-long journey. I am unspeakably grateful for the opportunity that I was given here in the Kootenays, to have discovered some of what this sacred container called friendship is all about. To be initiated into the depths of the giving and receiving that happen in real friendship, the emptying out and the filling up, the bowing down and the leaping up, the grief and the deep deep joy, is more than I could have asked for.

David Whyte says, “ All friendships of any length are based on a continued, mutual forgiveness. Without tolerance and mercy all friendships die.”  To live inside this mercy, this kindness, this forgiveness, is a miraculous thing, something we encounter again and again, as if for the very first time. I never knew what this was when I was growing up-it has come to me later on in my life. I could have died before this was given to me; but I am still alive. And so are you. We live inside this love, that is so much bigger than all of us, that streams through all beings, whether they know it or not–this love that sings its own song in you, a song that cannot be sung by anyone else.

We fail each other in community-we stumble into our own wounds and limitations.  We come face to face with all of the ways we are not able to really show up, to love deeply, to be authentic and creative in our responses. This is a humbling and grueling thing to pass through-it breaks our heart and brings us to our knees when we have to face this. And it shows us once again why we need to keep bathing in an unending stream of mutual forgiveness.

Thank you for breaking my heart,

Thank you for tearing me apart,

Now I’ve got a strong strong heart,

Thank you for breaking my heart.

Sinead O’Connor

I have a feeling that we humans have just begun to touch the fringes of what true community is. We are just discovering how to awaken the courage, the compassion, the clarity and the presence that we need for this endeavor. Ultimately, a real community supports our evolution and awakening, our willingness to enter into the miracle of this human life, and participate whole-heartedly, without holding back. I offer unending gratitude to every being in the Kootenays who has helped me move toward this full embrace.

 

with love,

Shayla