Community

Toddlers are shown flash cards or other educational materials so they can have a head start in school. You are only "successful" in school if you get good grades, which enables you to get in to a "good" college, which then enables you to get a "good" job. When you have a good job, you can make a lot of money, and you can buy all kinds of nice things, take vacations, etc. When you have everything you could possibly want, you must be happy, or so it is said. All of these steps, all of society geared toward this, so we can be happy. What does this give us? It gives us families that are not together --- we lack community. Communities foster a remembrance of God --- "where two are gathered in His name." A community is not just a family. It is groups of families and friends who have chosen to closely live and work together, reflecting the wholeness that we are. The Native American and other indigenous cultures lived together in communities. They lacked for nothing for they realized that there was nothing they needed to achieve or gain to be happy. They knew that their happiness was intrinsic to who they were as an individual and also as part of the community, and their happiness was also reflected back to them through their relationships with others in the community and with their Creator. On this Easter, where we are joined with our families, we need to reflect on the importance of a community.