The Community

The word commune is a beautiful word that at once captures the beauty of human life in a collective living. It also captures the desired sense of security that enables one to commune with others, at more personal levels of enlightened intimacies! Often  of intellectual and/or spiritual matters. Thus indicating trust, camaderie & a faith that the former two are shared meanings that won't be abused or betrayed.

Somehow the sacred is so intimate with community life & living. It becomes the over-arching dome/roof under which we all find shelter. Perhaps the old Churches symbolized that recognition & coming together, amidst shared values that we all cherish. To lend richer meanings to life & living. Yet that recognizes & respects the individual unique being that we all are! The reason why when we do commune, we do so as enlightened of this basic recognition of the individual & not in the denial of his or her individuality. 

We seek to be inspired, and to inspire in the eloquence of our deeds & then our expressions. To lend a helping hand to the one who needs it. A shoulder to lean upon, when fatigue may stalk us. To recognize & cherish friends in our knowledge that each is a potential friend.

Yet what would be us if bereft of meanings? Even of that of a friend? I remember once sharing with someone in Africa - a young girl seeking friendship. In my gratitude and helplessness to help her - all I could do was share with her a meaning (with the hope that it would help serve her better in her choices of friends by becoming aware of the meaning(s)). This is what I wrote in my email to that girl:

"A friend is many things in life, Tricia. A friend would be (one) who would show you some ways in life but never impose. A friend would be someone who would help you but not because of pity. A friend would be someone who would share with you your joys, without resenting them. A friend would be someone who would share your sorrows, but without liking your head resting upon his/her shoulders for those reasons. A friend would be someone who is always around you - even if absent physically. For that what makes a friend is what exists in the universe around you."

Well, the sentiments above are fine - but are you sure this is the correct blog to post these? Many may think like that - in the immediacy of solutions that are hard-pressed for time that many security personnel realize & recognize. Something that is, like a teaching job, one of the more thankless jobs in the world and yet that they perform with endless courage, resilience and grit. Simply because they become the jobs we can't do without - in a community life - if we are to allow the obverse of crime-terror to become part of the community. Or overtake it. This is where the relevance is for this post to figure in this blog!

Yet those two, like others, started as the cherished jobs only the self-sacrificing individual could undertake. Simply because they demand the utmost of personal integrity. But that was before the public servant became a cursed epithet with the corrupt politician. But then that makes the word community that perhaps do exist but in lesser numbers such a cherished existence. The crime-terror afflicted ones rob us all of the joys of the richness of life & living that otherwise could be found anywhere!

Crime-terror do that. You can undo that. Around simpler & easier terms like cognizance, meanings & integrity of character. 

PS: Watching clips of the Brazilian Carnival, I remain impressed with a common realization: the beauty of unrestrained youthful freedom! Have you wondered why the word consensual is so critical, when we speak of communities: the freedom of the individual that each respects? That is what allows one to commune. Try it. It can't be otherwise. Enlightened freedom is what mark friendships. Friendships mark community life & living. They also help beat crime-terror black & blue to their very bums!