Day 13 - Community

Community. The word springs to mind a tight-knit group of people, usually within a close enough distance for personal interaction. Fortunately, community actually means oh so much more. In the case of the Pagan community, "Community" means all of us practitioners can understand our trials and victories because we all, together AND individually encounter just about everything in the same way as each other...so instead of going to our neighbor and saying "Hey, this just happened" and your neighbor listens in interest or confusion, we can go online or to our next gathering in a nearby town and say "hey, this just happened" and everyone else will know exactly what you mean.

As a community, we understand how the world affects us because at some point we all experience the same kind of interest or confrontation; we also know the hard time we can have learning our crafts and gaining reliable information, and we also know the difficulty we have being taken seriously as a group (no thanks to the wannabes and pseudo-Pagans out there role-playing).

As a community we all tend to stick together and offer words of encouragement and comfort when we encounter difficult times, and words of praise and excitement in times of triumph.

Community exists even when we all live miles upon miles apart. Community also not only exists for Pagans, but I've encountered nation wide community in online parenting groups as well. In the same way Pagans will give words of encouragement or praise depending on the situation, parents do the same (as I have a soon-to-be 2 year old, and enjoy talking about the struggles and joys of new parentage).



But like in all communities you will have those who thrive on drama and conflict. The difficult part of community are those who want to keep us in the dark ages. Those who want people to do things THEIR way and no one elses. Unfortunately for the rest of us...trying to reason with people who thrive on drama is like beating on a brick wall. Nothing will be accomplished. These members need to just be left on their own to figure things out for themselves, then be there when they realize they were wrong, and offer them words of encouragement, experience and assistance when needed.

Community is indeed an important aspect to Pagans. While the majority of us work alone, this "community" is always there to help us...help us understand our spirituality, help us seek out the Gods (should there be a desire to seek one/some out), and help us when we feel there is nothing for us.