Emerging Community

Community is not just about organizing people, it is about gathering with others for the greater good of all. Most of the community we experience is unplanned. You might go for a walk and meet a neighbour with her dog coming towards you. You might smile when her dog barks and stop as it runs towards you letting him know it's okay for him to greet you. You might bend down and let the dog smell your hand and talk to it gently, musically. His eyes will look at you and his tail will wag if he's happy to meet you. He may be thinking "Oh dear, there's a person without a dog - she must be lonely all by herself". Or he may be thinking "What's that smell - must investigate". You won't know just what he is thinking but his energy and enthusiasm will greet you and you'll know you have been addressed.

This is mostly how community works - without planning and with some trust.

Community planning is good too, but when we begin to rely on someone else to make the rules we begin to feel powerless.

The Power of Faith

Thich Nhat Hanh translates the word faith into confidence and trust "because it is something inside you and not directed toward something external".

So I shift into a place of confidence that I am a being of integrity and that I have a right to be here.

Working through the night and the following day with this particular power enabled me to give up anxiety, to second guess and question everything I do and say.  What is that about? And - what was that?

After spending so many years looking to the external world for assessment of what is good and what is troubling, I can see how moving to a place of faith in my ability to create some goodness in a changing and unpredictable world, I can bring my focus back to my own energy.

For a start I told myself that I had faith that I could sleep through the night so that I could get up early the next morning to do what I had promised to do. It worked and I felt less like a creature oppressed by the whims of fate.

During the waking hours it soon occurred that mindfulness was also wedded to the power of faith because I need to be mindful of the tasks to do them satisfactorily.

This also reminded me of a time when I was younger and took confidence for granted, assuming I would always have that strength and ability.  How did I lose my confidence? Perhaps a few mistakes made me feel like a fumbling old lady and I questioned my abilities more and more.

Getting back to that place of comfort with the self is quieter, more peaceful, than the angst and apologies, and the continual self-reprimands grieving over a more youthful confident self.