The search begins - dissertation -

I started to write something about spiritual capital, yet I am going to divert a little… so currently my mind jumps into this seeking land for my dissertation, with the theme global intercultural community living, lived in a way that prompts belonging. What is living interculturally? Is it some idealism that is written in hope, or actually a reality with living examples? What does it mean on paper and in reality, is the gap too big to bridge over?

Recently was doing personal reflection on my experience of community, trying to articulate my idealism and the reality I am confronted with. I find myself dreaming of what community I wish to establish and live in when I leave Ireland. Looking towards those examples that I have lived or come across on the journey and where that fits into my processing. Community living is the hardest aspect of religious life. If you ever meet someone who says it’s not, then you know there is a problem! I am adaptable, easy living, an introvert whose delights in adventures taking me outside of myself often. I try to hold a view of the larger picture, after years of looking at the world black and white, living in colour is so life giving, while demanding in its complexity. 

 

I pick up on a few terminologies in my journaling, of the expression living as a ‘guest’ implying that community is more like a hotel model. It has certain entitlements depending what has been established, fee in exchange. Clearly for me it’s a metaphor that comes with a cost of feeling like I leave a part of myself at the door. As Anthony Gittens would refer to this mentality as neither aloneness nor togetherness. 

 

Another community experience in my university days was independent living with own freedom yet living under one roof, in the hall of residence. The larger community coming together for meals, celebration or social events, yet generally speaking each person is free and nobody is held to any moral or legal requirements apart from observing normal social conventions. It’s a form of alone-togetherness situation. 

 

There are so many examples of community and our language to a point adds structure to this. Like a prison, or as sometimes called ‘correction facility’ with the ‘inmates’ creating a us and them dynamic. There is dynamism all over the place if you allow yourself to dwell in this concept for a moment. This community is built on together-aloneness. Another community is retirement home which will be similar to that of the experience above from the hall of residence. 

A country club which I see the mirroring of religious life a little- maybe touching on laity association, from the ‘vetting’ of private details in-order to establish entrance. Then once obtain membership given access with responsibility of course. 

 

Jonathan Sacks, former chief rabbi, contrasts a range of places people live highlighting the difference between the family home and other places people live. It is very interesting. The concept of family home is drawn out as the closest connection to religious communities. The concept of course has the difference of not choosing family yet choosing religious community. The family home though is a place of evolving, organic entity. There is a change in all shapes and forms, with relationships of marriage, siblings, the different stages of growth. There is adapting and negotiating that is continuous even when family members leave the home. There is a spirit about this evolving living, that even when not being together the connection is maintained and brought alive when gathered. It’s important to note that no family can survive without drama and trauma, fusion and fission, and great mutuality – as Gittens kindly articulates. 

 

Bring me back to trying to process all this and place into the context of religious life. The call then feels like an asking for discovering dignity while celebrating diversity. 

Pope Francis said “We must walk united with our differences: there is no other way to become one. This is the way of Jesus” 

 

I like this, while at the same time mentally I know from experience what is being expressed is hard, not easy, demanding and will not be accomplished easily. 

A little hope comes from Rabbi Sacks who expressed “Peace involves a profound crisis of identity. The boundaries of self and other, friend and foe, must be re-drawn.” 

 

Covid has accelerated a lot of trends that were in place, for me this is most evident within the congregation. The spirit has worked overtime within communities over the past year. The world is changing at alarming rate, with some keeping within their comfort zones, using covid a means to excluded themselves from responsibility or accountability. It’s easy, sometimes I think the lines are so thin resulting inner focus opposed to outer feeding. 

 

Time has gone fast, opening a wider navigation into the unknown offering this invitation of embracing shoots that are coming up. I sometimes sit and see if I can name them, or in hearing about them I offer up a thanksgiving prayer. Within community though, this is not easy, it feels restrained with labels, human jealously, control, self-projection or simply imposing the past onto the now or future. I struggle with this a lot, I can identify these moments, these aspects that are at play bring me back to my seeking… community….

There are a lot of challenges while also a lot of opportunities.

 

So, the journey begins to explore what intercultural living is, to name it and sense if it is a possibility. For me, there is so much richness and beauty in diversity while I have become highly aware of the tone that monoculture is the limit of people’s desire to diverse or the concept of living interculturally means simply having another person from a different country live in your community. There is so much to be broken open, and the journey is only just beginning … I have five months for the dissertation, with so many inner questions using this academic paper as an umbrella in the searching.