Of Community

Human beings are chaotic and complicated. There is very little about the human being that can be reduced to a neat and easy model of explanation. Trying to seek out the motivation for any given action or thought often leads us on a trail backwards in our histories as we trace the elaborate series of events and people that have brought us to this present moment.
As human beings we find ourselves always afflicted and gifted with this thing called a past that has been formed through the communities and relationships we are always involved in. Have you ever noticed that human beings are perpetually in relationship to one another? The use of language especially testifies to this fundamental characteristic of life. There cannot be language in isolation from relationship between things capable of communication. Language can only take place in a world where there is at least a “you” and an “I.” Our near constant use of language then reminds us of our community-based existence. Sometimes we remain lifelong members of our communities, such as our families, and other times we migrate from one community to the next, such as the student bodies we belong to as we progress in our education, but always we are embedded in a web of relationships that form us and sustain us. Our identities, how we live, act, and think all bear the unmistakable fingerprints of this life in community, which we understand through what we call our past.
In each present moment, the past haunts us and helps us in each decision we make. That is, as human beings, we always seem to bring a particular perspective to any person or event. We are creatures conditioned by the communities and relationships we have been and are a part of, and they leave us with habits of thought and action.
In application, this means that when we participate in service-learning we are always coming to any given person, group of people, neighborhood, city, or situation with certain ideas and attitudes towards or about them. While we can and often do need to change the content of these ideas and attitudes that we carry with us, the general characteristic of being creatures perpetually in community, means that we are always going to be affected and guided by our past in how we act in the present and future. Our best recourse is to first understand exactly what it is we are coming with in our interactions with people and places. How do I perceive this person or neighborhood? Why do I perceive them in this manner? What experiences have I had with volunteering or acts of service that now govern the way that I engage in these acts of service? How do the religion, family, and neighborhood I have been raised in affect how I relate to this place or person(s)? How does the relationship I am now in with this person(s) and place leave me with new habits of thought and actions for the future? We are human beings, constantly involved in relational existence in this world, forever experiencing the present become the past, and the past affect the future.
Sometimes our histories within our communities leave us with wicked prejudices and opinions, and destructive behaviors towards the people and places around us. But sometimes our histories within our communities leave us with habits of compassion and nurturing, thoughtfulness and love towards the people and places around us. To answer the questions concerning how the past affects what we do, say, and think in the present does not always need to lead to being harshly critical of oneself, although it will likely involve that sometimes, rather the meaning resides in the larger task of realizing our humanness. We are limited human beings, forever with a past, present, and future, never stopping, always living and interacting in community.

1. What communities have you belonged to, or belong to now?
2. How do certain communities affect your habits of thought and action?
3. Can we, should we, escape the habits of thought and action we form in the communities we are members of?
4. For many of us, one community that we commonly belong to is the body of Christian believers throughout time, called the church. How do the traditions of the church equip us in our interactions with the people and places we will come in contact with through our experiences with service-learning? Are these traditions positive or negative?
5. How does your understanding of the degree to which you are deeply affected and guided by the communities which you have been a part of, in turn change the way you see others? Does this attitude cultivate a greater degree of graciousness, charity, and patience towards others when you realize that we are all deeply limited human beings?

Finally, the question of Now What? With the beginnings of an understanding of the habits of thought and action that our histories in communities and relationships have left us with, what do we do next?