Quotes about Community

We are wired to be caring for the other and generous to one another. We shrivel when we are not able to interact. I mean that is part of the reason why solitary confinement is such a horrendous punishment. We depend on the other in order for us to be fully who we are. (...) The concept of Ubuntu says: A person is a person through other persons.

It is true that when we harm others, we harm ourselves; but it is just as true that when we help others, we also help ourselves.

A person is a person because she recognizes others as persons.

Thus to forgive is indeed the best form of self-interest since anger, resentment, and revenge are corrosive of that summum bonum, that greatest good, communal harmony that enhances the humanity and personhood of all in the community.

Only in restoring the web of connection can we find peace. I'm sure it is possible to heal in a mountaintop cave alone, but for most of us the quickest and deepest healing happens in the embrace of others.

After all, we are created in the image of a God who is a diversity of persons who exist in ineffable unity.

Giving women education, work, the ability to control their own income, inherit and own property, benefits the society. If a woman is empowered, her children and her family will be better off. If families prosper, the village prospers, and eventually so does the whole country.

The apostle Paul similarly had loyal friends. "No man in the New Testament made fiercer enemies than Paul, but few men in the world had better friends.

Some made it an excuse for not attending the church service on a Sunday morning, that they could not awake early enough to get their families ready. He provided for this also. Taking a bell in his hand, he set out every Sunday for some months at five in the morning, and went round the most distant parts of the parish inviting all the inhabitants to the house of God.

Christ taught that the kingdom of God was a community where each member served the others. He defined His ultimate purpose using that term. But in most churches, a few people carry the load.

The church, for far too long, has been more interested in its seating capacity than in its sending capacity.

Our business is not enemy making but enemy loving. Our business is not dividing the country into blue and red states, but being a people of one accord. Our business is not securing the power to rule, but doing justice, showing mercy, and walking humbly with our God.