Community

What it means to be human
In the story of “Alice in Wonderland” when Alice meets Caterpillar in her search for White Rabbit, Caterpillar simply ignores Alice’s ‘I’ statements about what she’s doing and repeatedly asks ‘Who are you?’  It highlights how difficult it is to define ourselves.
Often, when we’re asked to introduce ourselves e.g. when around a table for discussion, we are more likely to describe ‘what we do’.  Being who we are is immensely mysterious, principally because ‘I am not a finished being!'
Jesus asked two questions of his disciples:
“Who do they say I am?
Who do you say I am?”
The key question I suppose is, ‘What is your value?’  God meets us where we are and we meet God where He is.
St Augustine declares that the essential quality for teaching is ‘hilaritas’ – a light-hearted enthusiasm – and if you don’t have it, you can’t teach.  He goes on to recommend that you concentrate on two things:
•    Constantly being in love with what you teach;
•    Constantly being in love with whom you teach.
Central to our task as parents and teachers is humanisation – bringing about genuine wholeness.  The Catholic understanding of education is not that which produces solicitors, engineers and business people but of human beings who can choose to enter these and other occupations.  We do it through interaction and communication.  It’s that which makes us more human and indeed in the process, more divine.

Family life and the home are central to community and it’s there that God lives.  Even today, when the notion of “family” is undergoing radical change, it is still true.  The mystics believe that God is born anew in every child.  “Here comes God again,” they would say, “in deep disguise.  The seed of God becomes God.  Just as the pear seed becomes the pear tree, and the hazel seed becomes the hazel, so too, God’s seed in us becomes God.”  And all of this happens in the living rooms and kitchens of every family.  The home is indeed, a holy place.  It is the nursery of divinity.   What about those homes that appear broken?  Well, Leonard Cohen (Canadian poet/folksinger) has a word of wisdom:
“Ring out the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.”

And finally a poem

RISK
To laugh is to risk appearing the fool,
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental,
To reach out for another is to risk involvement,
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self,
To place your ideas, your dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss.
To love is to risk not being loved in return,
To live is to risk dying,
To hope is to risk despair,
To try is to risk failure.
But risks must be taken, for the greater hazard is to risk nothing,
The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, and is nothing.
They may avoid suffering and sorrow,
But they cannot learn, change, grow love or live.
Chained by their attitude they are a slave, they have forfeited freedom,
Only a person who risks, is free.