Community Life - Part 5

Community is………having common ground with your neighbor.

“Common ground” is defined as - a basis, agreed to by all parties, for reaching a mutual understanding.

Everyone in our community has agreed on the basis for reaching a mutual understanding. Any problem or question that arises is taken to God and His word. We can’t rely on what we think or how we feel. What we “think” can change and our “feelings” can be deceptive. Only God’s word is unchanging and endures forever. “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths.”

            Here is the really neat part about community…….When you have “common ground” in God and His word, and you also have “common ground” that is actual ground beneath your feet, soil that you plant your gardens in, the foundation that you build your houses on, and paths that your feet walk on every day, it can be a beautiful thing. Life becomes something that you share and burdens become lighter. Whether it is help with babysitting, sharing your dinner with someone who is not feeling well, having tea and a chat on a rainy afternoon, borrowing the one ingredient needed for dinner that you forgot at the grocery store, planting flowers or an herb garden with the children, sitting on the porch in the evenings with the neighbor kids singing hymns or playing the dulcimer.

            I find myself coming back lots of times to something our pastor said. “You can’t serve God without serving others” and it is so true. I enjoy the time that I spend reading news at my computer, or watching a sappy movie, even just sitting on my porch listening to the birds sing, but I know that the things I do that will last are when I give of myself to others. That is what community is all about.

“Nobody can discover the world for somebody else. Only when we discover it for ourselves does it become common ground and a common bond and we cease to be alone.” 
― Wendell Berry, A Place on Earth