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Being Able to Transcend
Reflections & more on community and especially community building in light of Scott Peck's book: "The Different Drum" as well as Foundation for Community Encouragement.
Date: 10/16/2009 6:28:14 PM ( 16 y ) ... viewed 1635 times One of my house mates lent me his copy of Scott Peck's book: "The Different Drum" and I am amazed tha6t I have not read this before! It was published in 1987. "Your Enchanted Gardener" and I celebrated the "Harmonic Convergence" (along with some others) that Summer right next to where I have been dreaming over the past year and a half! I am really surprised that I have not connected with this book within the first year that it came out! Now twenty-two years later it is in my hands! It is the most encouraging to read how groups of people have become community within about three days when they have come together committed to taking the required steps towards reaching that goal. Three days! I have been in "the Enchanted Garden" group (EGG) for over 400 days, apparently "wondering in the desert" (or in chaos, etc.). Whatever! The book is the best thing I have ever read on community and especially community building, what it takes.
First of all it takes attraction. One of the problems I see in EGG-land is not everyone here is attracted to the idea of actualizing community where we are. I don't know but it does appear to me that people here want their own individual way more than they are willing to empty themselves for something greater. There might be about a third of the people who at least say they want what I think might be called community. However, if it were to take about three days for us to come together in commitment to create community I think that only about two or three of us could actually show up! We would need another way to come together long enough and frequent enough to work though the stages (that Scott describes in his book) to get to where we all have "transcended" our differences, etc. Is that possible here with this group? I honestly do not know!
Even though I have a basic understanding of the process that is described in "Drum" I really don't know what it would take for this "EGG" to pull it off. We had met last a number of times and there was a lot of talk. The talk included some conversation regarding forming some kind of a foundation that would include financial support for the community, however, I now see that those conversations were, IMO, a kind of avoidance of our most basic task of directly becoming a community! There appears to be great mastery in the art and craft of avoidance among the group members! Great avoidance mastery!
"A community is ... a group of people who ... have been able to transcend their differences, enabling them to communicate effectively and openly, and to work together toward goals identified as being for their common good."
http://fce-community.org/cbe-guide/
We here at the "EGG" are not that kind of a community. We have not transcended out differences. We have not enabled ourselves to "communicate effectively and openly". We do not have "goals identified as being for their common good".
Nevertheless I'm intending to get my own copy of this "must have" book. I am also searching for community building workshop facilitators and learning whether a group can do the process over a number of weeks.
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