Oddly, even though I've picked my this book and read from it literally hundreds of times, I didn't make it past the second page of the introduction. Often, when we talk about community, we talk as if there is some monolithic group of people who make up the particular community that we're talking about. Even among sociologists, it is difficult to nail down a particular definition of community. But here, not two pages into it, Block makes an important distinction that may throw traditional definitions on their head. Block distinguishes community as the experience of belonging. Each time we find a place of belonging, we are having the experience of community. To belong, he asserts, is to be related to and a part of something. This belonging is membership, which he distinguishes as being at home in the broadest sense of the phrase. Having recently come to know the feeling of exile and exclusion, I have learned that when push comes to shove, the math of community changes drastically.
I hold myself as a community activist. I certainly understand the importance of belonging and creating spaces that contribute to a sense of belonging. For my whole life, I've been blessed with wonderfully diverse grouping of friends. I've known men and women who, for whatever reason, have felt displaced and without community. I've heard stories from many of my friends here in Denver about how they just don't feel connected to our local gay men's community. It really doesn't take much to excite me about the notion of community or for me to be passionate about our community. In my own life, in my partner's life, and in the lives of so many gay men with whom I interact, I see the difference that community makes. A bit cautious, I still believe in community, but I've gained a new understanding and respect for what takes to be authentic in community.
Most often, when I think about it, I have experienced the most enduring sense of community among strangers. This week, again, I had the occasion to be in community with a relative stranger. I had a meeting with a young man who was visiting Denver. He had I met for breakfast simply because a mutual friend, Scott, suggested that we know one another. The only things that I knew about him was that he was flying home to Seattle later in the day, he had just recently attended the Gay Men's Health Leadership Academy, and that we shared a mutual friend. As I walked into Racine's, he saw me enter and waved to me so that I knew where to find him. When I approached him, we greeted one another with a robust hug as if we'd known each other for years. I was surprised to learn that he had only met Scott the evening before, at the suggestion of yet another friend. For the next two hours, we had the type of fellowship that only folk who are willing to be known can have. My new friend, Paris, and I were experiencing community as a choice, just because people in each of our lives were in community with one another. Community isn't a mystery; it's a conscious choice.
As I look at my own blind spot and inauthenticity about community, I have seen how community can be such an empty word. Its like my Facebook friends, many of whom I do not know and don't rise to the level of friend. Or in other areas where those whom I'd thought to be my friends demonstrated that they are not. No harm, no foul; it's just nice to know what's what. I was having lunch with one of my young friends yesterday. We talked about the notion of friendship and how the word is used to connote things other than markers of friendship or mutual commitments. Really, when used without intention, these words are empty and meaningless. My own authenticity was not because I didn't have intention, but because I left no room for choice. But here is another place I can take responsibility, be authentic about where I've been inauthentic, and create a new possibility. So I'm taking on authentic communities of choice and a new possibility for gay men in Denver and the surrounding areas.
Right now, my community is small. And I think that its a good thing. But what I know is that the wonderfully diverse people who come into my world will find a sense of belonging and membership. Even before I see their face or know their name, I set my intention to being a welcoming and loving space. The choice to be in community will always be present in my actions and in my speaking. I will actively reach out to those who are seeking community invite them to join. I will resist easy labels of friendship or community for their own sake, but will hold open my heart as if it has never been hurt and continuously extend the invitation to community. And I am okay knowing that not everyone will choose to be in community with me. After all, its the choosing that makes it so special.
The doors of my heart are open..... and you are welcome here.
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