Random Thoughts on Community

I am captured by the image of shape and fit. Like pieces of a complex jigsaw puzzle, the pieces fit nicely with each other in one niche, and not at all, in another. In the Native American community (and I use this word ‘community’ very specifically) there is a deep understanding that verges on the domain of moral and cultural imperative, that each person finds their proper place in the smooth working of the whole.

This is a understanding and social instruction that is far from belonging just to Native Americans. Indeed, it is both a wisdom and an injunction of any well-functioning group, sliding round and around the communities of life, from insects to plants, and humans to birds. Naturally, the particulars will change as both the niche and the beings inhabiting it communicate with and adapt to the changes of the whole through time and space.

Evolution is indeed built on the environment that produces the niches within which an organism’s genes maintain or alter their arrangement, and the organisms thus fit better or worse, dialoguing constantly towards mutuality. Which, is not to say that the effect of the organism’s genes, and hence the organisms as a group, do not affect the environment as well. Algae may flower into an abundance that changes the entire nature of a pool of water, or a lake, or even an inlet of the sea, crippling the lives of innumerable other creatures that required light, or oxygen, in its depths. Similarly, the data points to humans changing the environment of the Earth.

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The gene similarity throughout the animals and plants, indeed all organisms upon the Earth, is a constant nudge towards a growing scientific understanding of our common living community. We are related: the plant and I, the insect and I… These are, as more indigenous communities are more commonly declaring, our brothers and sisters, our grandfathers, and our grandmothers. When I meet in community, in true community, I gather with shared understandings and with an open heart. There is no need to hide, indeed, I don’t feel separate. I belong, and I am glad of this and naturally find my place. If someone needs help, I am eager to help. I try to fit in. I make an aware effort to merge in concordance.

A religion, if the root comes from ‘to bind’, is thus not an enforcement. It is a handshake. Perhaps the root of the term’s idea of ‘binding’ is itself a longstanding human misconception. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel does not have God grasping the hand of Adam with omnipotent strength. The two hands extend towards each other, looking for that deeply satisfying contact. If and when they do, the consequence would not be and iron grip, but rather, a loving touch.

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Indeed, there is no need to create a God at all. God is in fact, entirely unnecessary. The Divine is all around us, and within us.

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It is sometimes thought that since stories often have common threads, that there must be a common source to tales and myths, passed on, dispersed, changed to fit circumstances… I ask you: if a man or a woman inhabited the same world and yet lived on opposite sides, might they not share stories about dawn and dusk?

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Since there are more bacteria constituting my body than cells, not counting the bacteria that constitute the mitochondria within each of my cells, would it not be more appropriate, well, perhaps more realistic, to consider the human organism as a collection of bacteria first, and cells second? That would at least be more democratic, giving equal voice to the entire constituency.

And by the way: would that then make me a single organism, or a community? And, on this note: since bacteria are basically biochemical machines, what does that make me? Put in another way, if I am a machine, who or what is the operator? And really, what is the point of all these questions. I am what I am. What difference does it make?

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Religion is a giant affirmation. From the cathedral to a forest sacred gathering around a fire, religion reaffirms our community with all of existence. We belong. We do fit, and in gathering, we re-identify where and how we fit. We feel the impulse to deference, without need to bow at the head, the waist, or throw ourselves to the ground. We give way naturally, because it feels better.

It is a dance.