{"id":171,"date":"2010-11-20T17:11:00","date_gmt":"2010-11-20T17:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/permissiontolive\/2010\/11\/blog-anniversary-and-the-art-of-community-life\/"},"modified":"2010-11-20T17:11:00","modified_gmt":"2010-11-20T17:11:00","slug":"blog-anniversary-and-the-art-of-community-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/permissiontolive\/2010\/11\/blog-anniversary-and-the-art-of-community-life.html","title":{"rendered":"Blog Anniversary and The Art of Community Life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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When I started this blog a year ago, I remember thinking that I just needed a place to organize my thoughts and process everything I\u2019m wrestling with. I created it on a whim (hence the unoriginal name \u201cMusing of a Young Mom\u201d) and thought that I might have a half-dozen followers after a year. Imagine my surprise when I had 2 followers within a week (Catholic Mutt<\/a> and The Married Couple<\/a>\u00a0Thanks guys!) and now a year later I have 80? I still can hardly believe it. <\/div>\n
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I continue to write this blog for me, so I write sporadically on whatever happens to be in my head. When I started writing here, I was sure of so many things, and\u00a0at the end of a year, I feel\u00a0as though there isn\u2019t that much we can be sure of. But along the\u00a0way, I\u2019ve discovered a new\u00a0understanding of God, I still wrestle with my doubts, I\u2019ve left behind spanking and the performance mentality\u00a0of my childhood, and I\u2019ve learned alot about myself.<\/div>\n
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\u00a0I have appreciated your support and input as I\u2019ve shared my journey. Thank you to everyone who bothers to read my scattered\u00a0thoughts ! I\u2019ve really enjoyed my venture into blogging, even though I am\u00a0kind of\u00a0unsavvy when it comes to computers and still feel challenged by pretty basic tech stuff. <\/div>\n
I have a whole bunch of posts percolating that are driving me nuts because I don\u2019t have the time to finish them. This blog is where my thoughts come together and actually make sense to me. And of course I love hearing from all of you. I will not be reading blogs much or writing at all while I am gone on this trip (thank you so much for all of your suggestions<\/a>!), I\u2019ll probably show up on Twitter<\/a> or Facebook<\/a> a few times, but I will miss reading you all! If you emailed me, thank you! I will return your notes when I get back.<\/div>\n
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And I\u2019ll leave you with\u00a0some thoughts I\u2019ve been pondering lately.\u00a0This quote is taken from the book by Joan Chittister \u201cWisdom Distilled from the Daily\u201d<\/strong> Living the Rule of St Benedict Today<\/em>:<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe art of community life in general lies in the balance of the person and the group. Benedictine spirituality exacts two things: self-giving and self-development; family order and family understanding. Any one of these without the others reveals a person or a group gone askew.<\/em><\/div>\n
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Individuals do not exist for groups. That is fascism. That is the philosophy that makes it possible to shoot football players full of steroids do the team can win and then abandon the players when the steroids don\u2019t work on their broken bodies any longer. That is the philosophy that makes young men cannon fodder for the fatherland. That is the philosophy that turns people into interchangeable parts for the company. That is the kind of parenting that leaved young people unhappy for years as they try to live out the aspirations of their mothers or the expectations of their fathers.<\/em><\/div>\n

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Groups exist for people. The function of a group is to enable people to achieve together what they cannot possibly achieve alone. Groups are meant to make our highest personal hopes achievable through common search and common effort and common discipline. Groups, communities, and families provide the environment in which individuals can become what they most seek to be.\u201d<\/em><\/div>\n


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I love this quote because it is so different from everything that I ever understood about the function of the group. I was most definitely taught that the individual existed to serve the group.\u00a0 <\/div>\n
\u00a0What is your understanding of the balance between the individual and the group? <\/div>\n
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When I started this blog a year ago, I remember thinking that I just needed a place to organize my thoughts and process everything I\u2019m wrestling with. I created it on a whim (hence the unoriginal name \u201cMusing of a Young Mom\u201d) and thought that I might have a half-dozen followers after a year. Imagine […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1145,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nBlog Anniversary and The Art of Community Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When I started this blog a year ago, I remember thinking that I just needed a place to organize my thoughts and process everything I\u2019m wrestling with. 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