~ Jill Hernandez, “The Existential Ground of True Community: Coffee and Otherness”
~ Elizabeth Schüssler-Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Reconstruction of Christian Origins
I found it very interesting when Thomas Merton, the famous Benedictine monk, applied to become a hermit and it was met with resistance for years. Merton felt the Abbot was resisting Merton’s request for personal reasons. That battle is quite a read!
The resistance to Merton’s request wasn’t without merit. Even Merton knew the dangers of living out one’s spirituality in isolation. That’s what I’m up against. I no longer am a part of a local church community. Neither are many of you! In a way, we are like Merton who are living as kind of hermits out in the world, many of us in isolation from other Christians and church communities…
~ Martin Luther King Jr.
Community is the overcoming of otherness in living unity.
—Martin Buber
The learning community, an ever-regenerated community of people who are willing to be present to and for one another, necessarily recognizes and openly discusses multiple points of view. Diversity is not a difficulty to overcome. A learning community’s multiplicity of viewpoints provides the material for ever-recurring dialogues, because each person brings something quite concrete and unique into the communal relationship. Open-minded honesty and willingness to be changed are valued more than like-mindedness. Again, it should be remembered that genuine community, for Buber, is not only an ideal but also a direction of movement, a reality that we try to build in every situation. A learning community happens through open-minded dialogue—open to otherness, and open to various points of view.
—Kenneth Kramer, Martin Buber’s I and Thou: Practicing Living Dialogue
