elainegrey

I'm listening to 1493 on my commute home with surprise that i am learning so much about China. However, as the most developed country at the time, the motivation for Columbus' travels, and the destination for most of the silver mined in the Americas, it makes sense. The author admits to simplifying, so i do note the absence of India in the narrative.

It would be very interesting to read a history of China-India relations from 2000 BC to the present.

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Winter blues making headway again with me, and Christine's nadir was tangible yesterday. The laundry load still taunts me. Christine's done some laundry in the interim, but i should do a significant bout tonight.

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I'm struggling again with the concept of community, where "struggling" means something like looking at an optical illusion and trying to figure out the reality of it. Something cracked open in Meeting for Business yesterday, a sense that maybe i do have an experiential understanding of community but deny it. Then again, i feel very un-tethered. Could i walk away from Meeting without noticing? My feeling is "yes" given that i found a similar time for worship. My experiential understanding of the Divine, though, has convinced me that being in community is necessary for me to honor that understanding.

I'd spent Worship turning over the idea of community in my mind, watching my mind ponder art projects, and coming back to a few questions about what spiritual growth do i aspire to in the next couple of months and what is community, anyhow.

During Meeting for Business, the clerk read the queries for the month:

Meetings for Worship and Business are the center of our spiritual
community. There, as we come to know each other in the Spirit, we
build the "beloved community."


Mutual respect and care in the Meeting form the foundation from which we can test, support, and exercise leadings of the Spirit. At its
best, the Meeting community provides a framework for us to learn and practice mutual care, which strengthens us as we act in the world.


All members of the Meeting community should share in the care of one another. While respecting privacy, we must be aware of and sensitive to each other's needs. We must also be willing to ask for assistance when we are in need.

I wasn't paying attention but scribbling out a report to give later in the meeting. Part of the breaking open occurred when the Friend sitting next to me spoke about how important the community was to him, and he said something to imply the importance of the community, the connection, wasn't voluntary. he was drawn in.

Am i drawn in?

Or to i hold myself back, a wall of intellectualization shielding me from interdependence, dependence? I see no need to experiment with withdrawal to see how connected i am: but what about experimenting with depending? How does one do that? (Other than my whole participation, as it is?)