Do we have the right to call ourselves

Do we have the right to call ourselves "Community"?

Frequently we hear the term Pagan or Heathen Community, but I started to
wonder if this is actually an appropriate term.

My understanding of Community is perhaps something a little more than a
group of individuals who follow a similar spirituality and sometimes meet
together for discussions and drinkies.

Now I may be totally off the ball here but I used to believe that
"community" involved mutual support, caring, actually doing things for each
other, and he's pulling together if things get or got tough or one of the
community was having a difficult time or indeed a member of the community
was under attack. In a community, in the days before the internet, help
actually meant something real and practical not just a "hugs <> I feel your
pain" from behind the safety of a computer. If people were hungry they got
fed, if people needed help or got sick they were looked after, If people
needed an ear to bash or were in physical or emotional pain they got
listened to and supported and helped over it - person to person - not from
behind a screen. When a baby was born into the community it became the
communities responsibility and the oohs and ahhs were not expressed over a
computer screen but in person and in practical terms. The whole community
would start knitting, food and nappies would appear, people would take the
baby for a time to give the mother a break etc etc. The baby would be
physically "presented to the community and the community would take
"responsibility" in real terms.

Now net messages are appreciated and probably an indicator that in our busy
lives we really don't actually have time to actually "visit" or help someone
in any other way.

To me, community is actually taking the time to DO. To follow up wonderful
words with practical action. To take the time to listen to someone's pain
and be sensitive to it before it becomes a scream, but to listen to what the
scream is saying. To do what you say you are going to do even if it costs
you time and money. To express your feelings in actions , again, even if it
costs time and money.

To not throw people to the wolfpack, much as we like listening to their
dying screams. To practice compassion ,forgiveness, and neighbourliness in
real terms amongst us.

To realise that the only way we are ever going to survive as a spirituality
this time round, is to be community in real terms and to also place the
thorn hedge around the community and defend it against those who would
attack us from without. This will mean getting out from behind our computers
and DOING something about it in REAL terms. The Matrix is NOT real!

We have a long way to go before we can call ourselves community - Yes
Rosemary - the Disunity and Disharmony are real! To pretend it is not, is
self deception. The healers need to use their healing salve of REAL actions
to produce healing in both the members of the would be community who are in
pain, and indeed the would be community as a whole.

(c) Leif