Community – The YES TO ME

One of the greatest teachings I received while traveling through Scotland came from a remarkable woman in the Highlands who is a master at building community.

As we sat together, I shared how deeply moved I was by the people around us. There was an older gentleman who openly shared his love to enjoy alcohol, a young woman who spoke loudly, trying to be heard, a young man dressed in women's clothing, and many others, each expressing themselves in their own unique way.

I found myself saying to her, "What I love most about this place is that no one seems to judge anyone. Everyone is simply allowed to be who they are. The good, the difficult, the beautiful, the messy.  It all seems to belong here. There is such freedom in that."

She looked at me with a puzzled expression and replied, "How could we ever build a community if we judged one another?"

Her words stopped me. In that one simple sentence, she offered me a teaching I will carry for the rest of my life.  I realized that I had been admiring the acceptance I was witnessing, while she was simply living it. To her, acceptance wasn't extraordinary; it was the very foundation of community.

She shared with me that during COVID the restaurants in the community were closed, and the fishermen could no longer go out to sea. These families seemed to suffer the most, so everyone in the community agreed that the income generated from the wind turbine they owned would be offered to support those families through this difficult time. She added that everyone who asked for support from this fund never asked for more than they needed because they felt they too were the community. To take more than you need is not community; it is greed.

No one taxed the community or judged it by who individuals were. Rather, they looked to see what was needed and, according to their skills, wisdom, and abilities, offered their time, their service, and their hearts to the community. If the community is hurting in any way, then so am I. If the community is loved, then so am I.

This moved me to reach out within my own community, beginning with my own family. When I returned home from this deeply moving journey through Scotland, I called everyone in my family to ask how I could help. A listening ear. Making a meal for my busy working sister. Helping in her garden by cutting the grass or pulling weeds. I began to notice a shift. My family started sharing more personal feelings they had quietly held within themselves. This opening of love moved me to paint little rocks with happy faces, hearts, and simple flowers, and quietly place one outside my neighbours’ doors in my apartment floor. Meeting those neighbours later in the elevator, they would say, "The day you left that little rock at my door was the very day I needed that heart... or that smiling face. Thank you." I am now committed to building my community in as many practical and heartfelt ways as I can.

I see in this world that people are kind to one another and present with each other, yet I wonder, are we truly building community? Community takes a willingness to give. To give your time, your money, your service, or simply a listening ear with the openness to share feelings and insights. It is the willingness to reach out, simply because we care, that builds community.

We often believe community is built because people think alike, vote alike, pray alike, or behave alike. Yet perhaps the opposite is true. Community is built on feelings. Not feelings of judgment, but feelings of self-expression, authenticity, and truth born from personal awareness. Perhaps community is born the moment we stop asking people to become someone else before they are worthy of belonging.

It doesn't mean we agree with every choice another person makes. It means we recognize that every human being carries a story we cannot fully see. Every person has known joy and suffering, love and loss. Every person is doing the best they can from their own level of awareness in that moment.

Acceptance does not weaken a community. In my 4 Noble Truths Communication class, we explore four powerful communication tools that guide us to listen more deeply and share authentically. The acceptance of another person just as they are. It is the Noble Truth of Positive Regard. It strengthens both the individual and the community to shine the light of who they truly are, rather than who they believe they should be. People feel that acceptance and respond in ways that take us beyond polite conversation into the heroic truth of being human.

We see it today with artificial intelligence. It can sound incredibly intelligent, yet we sometimes forget that it became intelligent because human beings gave it intelligence. It is a tool, much like when calculators first came into our lives. I remember my father worrying that calculators would take something away from our minds because we no longer had to add numbers in our heads. Yet over the years, calculators simply became another tool that helped us move to the next level. Perhaps AI can do the same. Perhaps it can free us to become even more open to one another on the human level, while technology reflects back our own intelligence.

When we are truly in community, embracing full acceptance of what is, we create the safety for people to remove their masks, soften their armour, and discover that they have always been enough.

As I left the Highlands that day, I found myself wondering if the antidote to the epidemic of loneliness isn't simply bringing more people together. Perhaps it is creating places where people no longer feel they have to hide who they are. Perhaps that is where true community begins.

Now I am home in my sweet city of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a place rich with wild beaches, ocean shores, lighthouses, fishermen heading out at dawn, and whales dancing through our waters. I see abundance everywhere. In that abundance, every part of me has been transformed, and I have become deeply committed to building community. I also know that for this to truly happen, I must intentionally make space in my week to offer acts of kindness. I cannot build community if I become consumed by business, by tasks, or by working hard to build my own life while forgetting that a beautiful part of that life is the people around me. Can we do that in this modern world where every moment seems measured by success?

I am choosing to step up, allowing each moment to remind me to truly see you and to be with you. In doing so, we support one another in becoming more connected to ourselves, to each other, and most of all to our home, Mother Earth, who continually invites us to rest with her, smell her flowers, taste her harvest, touch her trees, and embrace the freedom that lives within her waters.

To breathe deeply into this moment...and simply fall in love with life.

By Margaret Calder