Community of Spirit
I spend my life supported and shaped by spiritual community. It has grown and changed, as I have, and has been with me as long as I can remember.
My spiritual community has taught me a great deal. It has given me precious gifts, including opportunities to struggle and work my way through my own part in the community.
My spiritual community has usually been based in a group of people I can spend time with face to face. There have been lots of different people in lots of different places, and each of them has given me more than they imagine. We have shared our pain and frustration, prayed for each other, and inspired each other. We have listened to each other, even when we did not agree.
The people in my spiritual community show me the face of the Divine in their own faces.
The people I have known face to face connect me to the people they know. Some of these people live in faraway places. Some of them lived long ago, and we read words they left for us. They inspire me, teach me, and give me things to consider. Each of them tells part of the story, and each of them becomes part of my spiritual community. The monks I know in the monastery in Big Sur, for example, extend my spiritual community to include people throughout the history of Benedictine spirituality.
Now my community grows each day to include people I have never met. I meet people online who inspire me, who teach me and share with me, for whom I pray. My spiritual community stretches back through history and around the world.
Thank you for being part of my community.
Who is in your spiritual community?
Who is shaping you today?
[Image by loop_oh]
4 Comments
Kim
May 31, 2012I am so appreciative of my communities too, both offline and online. They do inspire and teach and connect us with others.
I have a spiritual community of women who support each other, but most of all, they make me feel loved no matter what.
Online I am inspired by writers such as yourself and Ronna Detrick.
Strategic Monk
May 31, 2012Thank you, Kim. I appreciate being in your community, and enjoy having you in mine! I hope today is an inspiring experience for you.
Amy Jo Lauber
May 31, 2012Thank you for this post. I, too, feel a sense of spiritual community and like to encourage others to develop one. I have friends and family members, strangers on Twitter (like you) and strangers in the grocery store, all part of the blessed neighborhood.
I think if more people felt this connection to others, there would be much less depression and anxiety in the world.
Strategic Monk
May 31, 2012Thank you, Amy Jo! Yes, we are surrounded by a great cloud of people, some we already know and some we have not yet met. As I recognize and appreciate my truest self, I am able to share that with the world around me. My true self connects with the true selves of other people.