HOW DO WE CREATE COMMUNITY?

Our children need to see us modeling how to be with each other.

But it's hard.

Some of us might have had parents who were kind and generous and inclusive.

Parents who really saw other people without judgement.

Who were genuinely interested in others.

Who would make time for others as a way of life.

Most of us did not have parents like that.

If we have been raised in what has become this culture of individualism, without regard to the other, we have not been given a template for how to function in circles of reciprocity.

Many of us are so busy trying to do it on our own, that we don't have time for each other. We would like to have dinner with each other. But we don't have time. We are all in our own little realities, instead of stepping in together with each other.

And what if we don't like how someone else does things?

We have convinced ourselves that we are better off doing things ourselves.

But autonomy does not need to mean separateness.

We can learn to listen to and value the ideas of each other.

Rudolf Steiner said in a lecture from the collection of lectures Love and Its Meaning in the World: "The mission of our Earth is the cultivation of the principle of love to its highest degree by those beings who are evolving upon it..."

We need to reclaim the word love and recall this living force within us and around us.

I had a conversation recently with someone who has spent some time living in West Africa. I heard a deep heart longing in her, that many of us carry as well, for finding the kind of community connection to land in that she experienced when living in West Africa.

To be held by each other. To be seen by each other. To have time for each other.

Without a blueprint, we must find our way. We must talk with each other. We must lean into what is uncomfortable...like asking for help...

We must begin by seeing each other with interest.

We must put down our cell phones when our children and loved ones are in the room. So they feel our 100% interest in them.

We must listen actively, making sure we are really hearing each other. We can wait a whole day to respond. There is no hurry.

We all need a good listening to.