If you want to go fast, go alone.
If you want to go far, go together.
African Proverb
Dear Friends,
On Oct. 22 at 11 am, Watsonville First United Methodist Church will be celebrating 170 years of faithfully serving the Pajaro Valley since 1852. Community is invited to the celebration. I want to use this occasion to address the importance of being part of a “beloved community” in a world where we find ourselves increasingly isolated and disconnected from others.
We are social creatures born to be relational. I AM because of WE. That is why the idea of “separate-self” is an illusion. My sense of self was forged out of people whom I have had intimate and meaningful relationships with. This is where the “beloved community” becomes a school of love where we learn to love one another in a healthy, life affirming way.
No person is an island. Even a hermit lives in the context of one’s monastic community and requires visitors. That is why the cruelest punishment is to put a person in an “isolation confinement”. When infants and babies do not receive adequate human touch and interaction, they develop mental illnesses and can literally die. There is a reason for the famous African proverb: “It takes a village to raise a child.” Without others, we will shrivel up, go insane and lose our way. Did you ever wonder why most mass shootings are perpetrated by people who are loners and live in isolation? When we live in isolation, we are in danger of being disconnected from reality with no one to check on our delusional reality. Humans function at their best when they interact and live with others in a healthy, vibrant community.
There is a tradition from an African tribe that is apropos here. In their tradition, when a person loses his/her way from the community, the tribe would call for a ritual of forming a circle with the fallen person sitting in the middle. There was once an angry young man who was prone to behave in a way that harmed others. The tribe elder called the tribe to hold a ritual of circle in the village square for the young man. The young man was asked to sit in the middle of the circle surrounded by the people who knew him. Each person in the circle took turns telling the young man what they admired and appreciated about him. It was a way of helping the young man remember all the good qualities and traits that he had forgotten. Through this communal process of affirmations and mirroring, the young man was rehabilitated and reconnected
to the community.
The church is an opportunity to form a “beloved community” based on Jesus’ instruction, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:12) One of human’s deepest longings is a need for belonging. The church as a beloved community can be that place of belonging where people can experience love, acceptance, support, and safety. As one church woman said, “There are no strangers, only people whom I haven’t met.”
“Each one of us has lived through some devastation, some loneliness, some weather superstorm or spiritual superstorm, when we look at each other we must say, I understand. I understand how you feel because I have been there myself. We must support each other and empathize with each other because each of us is more alike than we are unalike.” ~ Maya Angelou, African-American writer
