Tommy Elf<\/a>, I\u2019m looking at you). Most of us can\u2019t. Once I got serious about spiritual practice, it took right at a year before I hit the wall as a solitary. I had gone as far as I could go on my own. Once I found my way to Denton CUUPS and then to OBOD, my learning and growth picked up again.<\/p>\nA community is more than a collection of individuals. A community has its own history, its own culture, and its own values that are embodied by its members but that are not dependent on them. A community is a living entity \u2013 it can learn and grow and change. Like other living entities, it can also sicken and die.<\/p>\n
I have an obligation to my community that extends beyond my obligation to my fellow members. I have an obligation to support it and to represent it honorably in the wider world. There have been more than a few times when I\u2019ve gotten upset with grocery store lines and other ineffective public services, started to lose my temper, remembered I was wearing a Pagan t-shirt and bit my tongue. My frustrations may have been justified (or they may have been out of proportion \u2013 I\u2019m not perfect) but I didn\u2019t want strangers to associate \u201cpretty Nature-worshipping t-shirt\u201d with \u201ccan\u2019t deal with life\u2019s annoyances.\u201d<\/p>\n
Communities are human institutions, and like all human institutions they are imperfect. They are also subject to being hijacked by individuals for their own purposes. We\u2019ve heard about the coven that\u2019s all about the high priestess, just like we\u2019ve heard about the church that\u2019s all about the preacher\u2026 and the church that\u2019s all about a handful of long-term members and what they want. Hold a leadership position \u2013 formal or informal, elected or voluntary or ad hoc \u2013 for long enough and it gets difficult to separate your needs from the needs of the community. But these are challenges for communities and those in them, not reasons to avoid them.<\/p>\n
The main thing I want to say about community \u2013 and the main thing I pulled out of the essay I threw away \u2013 is that being in a community requires us to balance our needs with the needs of the community. Ask someone why they left a church and you\u2019re likely to hear \u201cit wasn\u2019t meeting my needs.\u201d Translate that into a Pagan setting and you\u2019ll hear much the same. \u201cMeeting your needs\u201d is something you expect from a service provider: from the phone company or from an auto repair shop.<\/p>\n
A community \u2013 in particular a religious community \u2013 doesn\u2019t exist to meet your needs. It exists to fulfill its mission and continue its traditions. If you participate fully, many of your needs will be met. But you will also be challenged. Families challenge their children to learn and grow \u2013 in case you\u2019ve forgotten, that\u2019s not easy. Religious communities \u2013 good ones, anyway \u2013 challenge their members to learn and grow as well, to grow deeper in relationship with each other and with our gods, and to more fully embody the virtues of those gods.<\/p>\n
Sometimes this depth comes through beautiful creations, ecstatic experiences, and fascinating discoveries. Sometimes it comes through useful projects and fulfilling service. And sometimes it comes through hard, dirty, sweaty, frustrating work. Avoiding the unpleasant parts of community marks you as a religious consumer instead of someone who is committed to the goals of the religious community.<\/p>\n
If you truly have needs that your community isn\u2019t addressing (such as advanced teaching or opportunities for service or leadership), by all means look for a different community. Or perhaps look for a complementary community, as I did in adding OBOD to CUUPS. But regardless of the approach you take, expect to contribute to the community and its ends.<\/p>\n
There are Pagans whose community is the primary center of their practice. It\u2019s a secondary center for me \u2013 Nature<\/a> and the gods<\/a> are my primary centers. But it is an important center \u2013 without the active, caring, and sometimes frustrating religious communities in which I live, work and worship, my practice and my life would be far less than they are.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A religious community doesn\u2019t exist to meet your needs. It exists to fulfill its mission and continue its traditions. If you participate fully, many of your needs will be met. But you will also be challenged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1129,"featured_media":1208,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[106,946,124,4,5],"class_list":["post-1207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-practice","tag-community","tag-cuups","tag-obod","tag-pagan","tag-paganism"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/243\/2013\/07\/CUUPS-Beltane-2010-33-spiral-dance.jpg\" "\\"CUUPS")
<\/a>This is the final installment in my series on the centers of the Pagan movement and my commitments to them. The original post had three centers<\/a> (Nature, the gods and the self); John Halstead added community <\/a>after some discussion and I agree with him.<\/p>\n