Authentic Community

Some fam­i­lies have it. Some com­pa­nies have it. Some churches have it. On occa­sion you will find it in AA meet­ings or other ther­apy groups. For it to hap­pen, it takes two or more. If you are an out­sider, you can feel it in the intro­duc­tion. Authen­tic com­mu­ni­ties do exist. They are messy. They accept flaws but are grace­fully intol­er­ant of the inten­tion­ally infe­rior action or thought. There is more going on than a mere ref­er­ence group. These peo­ple do not agree on every­thing, but they have deep hon­esty in com­mon and a frame­work of love and for­give­ness. Patience is the keynote to their inter­ac­tions. Matu­rity is the mutual goal. There is a deep respect for each other’s pace of growth. Com­par­isons are avoided.
If you find or cre­ate such a com­mu­nity, you will have a much bet­ter go at life. You will heal and help oth­ers heal with­out real­iz­ing that it is going on. The ego is put on the shelf for the sake of soul­ful com­pan­ion­ship. Humor is kind and usu­ally instruc­tive. There is a twin­kle in the eye of the sto­ry­teller. Mem­o­ries are with­out neg­a­tive tones and shared with a sense of humil­ity. Toxic shame and ridicule are off lim­its. They are poi­sons to any authen­tic­ity. Truth reigns, but is not the prop­erty solely of any one mem­ber of the group. Ideas are shared as tools, not stances for dom­i­nance.
The lan­guage of these groups can be very sim­ple or extremely com­plex. What deter­mines the authen­tic­ity of the com­mu­nity has to do with its spirit. It is “real” because it makes allowances for fail­ure, flaws, and the less-than-perfect. How­ever, it does not set­tle for the shoddy. All of the mem­bers look to higher call­ings and that which is greater than the self — even greater than the group. An authen­tic com­mu­nity makes safe places for ver­bal inti­macy. Lis­ten­ing is more their style than pro­claim­ing. Sup­port­ive silence punc­tu­ates the con­ver­sa­tions with a grace beyond utterances.