Community

Posted on May 22nd, 2008 by Jim.
Categories: General.

According to Webster’s Dictionary –

1. A social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage; 2. A locality inhabited by such a group; 3. A social, religious, occupational, or other group sharing common characteristics or interests and perceived or perceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the larger society within which it exists.

Now, what do I think? What is community? What I propose is to dive away from just the definition and talk more about what community means to me, and maybe others.

We have communities that we live in, while others exist for gathering for a common bond or goal like prayer, worship or recreation. We all belong to many communities at any given time. We transverse through these communities all the time, sometimes joining in new communities and other times are leaving communities for various reasons. However, I believe many people do not understand what communities are and many others do not know how to exist in those communities or when it is time to move on.

While I would not want to belabor anyone by trying to define, defend, or defile any communities on line, I do want to provide some thoughts on people who it seems have the sole purpose of destroying communities. They are aimed at tearing down the pillars of these communities because of some feeling of exclusion, betrayal, loss, or any number of other things. This leads me to my example, and the thoughts I want to share.

Personally, I belong to several communities, some of which I am deeply involved with and others just on the periphery. One community I do belong to is made up of artists and creative people, some with significant talents to share and others who are only novices in what they know. Like any community there are sets of leaders, instructors, teachers, and sets of students, followers and admirers. Additionally, like so many communities, there are those perceived to be the ones to know and those who feel left out or kept out by others. Clearly, whenever you are dealing with creativity, there is going to be a tremendous of amount of energy involved. Community members get tied to that energy, thrive on it, cherish it, and live for it. Sadly, in this community, certain members make it their sole purpose to tear down the pillars of this community, forsaking the good names of those who are leaders and builders of the community. These community members spend time spreading lies, telling false stories, and exaggerating the truths of their experiences, so as to elicit followers who will believe them and share in their grief. What baffles me is why these members of the community can spend so much energy spreading their negativity, their venom of foul thought, rather than moving on and finding ways to improve the situation. They blame everyone for the discomfort they feel rather than finding ways to improve their situation. Recently, a member of this community has spent more time defiling the name of one specific leader of the community, spreading lies and hate, speaking to people with false information, and even taking time to post these lies about on different platforms. Additionally, this member has taken to spreading lies about another member of the community in the forms of false information about circumstances and situations, playing up that he is something better and far superior to those he is trying to take down. I have even had to reject some of that information here on my blog site from this person, who somehow believed putting a posting comment here would actually get through to the general public.

So why should I care? Well, because these things affect the positive aspects of what communities do. The spreading of all this negativity only works against the good of the community and the ability of the community to be a source of strength and power. It serves no one to have this process of lies and hate continued.

What do I want? Honestly, what I want will not happen. What I want is for this person to move on, find the growth to move forward, turn a leaf and find it in his heart to forgive and forget whatever wrongs he feels was done towards him. While he constantly asks to be removed from these communities, he continues to post his hate, so I ask him, why not just leave? Additionally, I hope this member can find it in himself to seek out help for this hate that ravages his mind. Clearly it would be beneficial to everyone if he was able to put this to rest, most especially for him.

So, this is my rant from the “juice box”. This is not something I plan to do regularly. If you want commentary on the ills of the world, turn on the nightly news, and be flooded with it. However, I hope that you will support your communities in building a place of safety and trust, not allowing one opinion to sway your feelings and perceptions. I hope as a community we can rally to either help this person in fixing what is wrong, or help this person move along to another place where they can find they support and strength they need. Until my next post, enjoy what life has to offer, filter out they hate and evil, and try to find that community spirit for strength, love and growth.

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