Community is a sign that love is possible in a materialistic world where people so often either ignore or fight each other. It is a sign that we don't need a lot of money to be happy--in fact, the opposite.
Jean VanierRead
A community which refuses to welcome - whether through fear, weariness, insecurity, a desire to cling to comfort, or just because it is fed up with visitors - is dying spiritually.
Interpretation
What this quote means
A community that does not embrace new members is losing its spirit.
Jean Vanier emphasizes the importance of welcoming newcomers into a community, highlighting that a refusal to do so can lead to a spiritual decline. When communities prioritize comfort or fear over inclusion, they risk stagnation and a loss of their vibrant, communal essence.
Themes
CommunityInclusionSpiritWelcomeBelonging
In practice
Example use cases
During a community meeting discussing the importance of inclusivity.
More from Jean Vanier
All quotes →One of the marvelous things about community is that it enables us to welcome and help people in a way we couldn't as individuals. When we pool our strength and share the work and responsibility, we can welcome many people, even those in deep distress, and perhaps help them find self-confidence and inner healing.
Jean VanierRead
We all know well that we can do things for others and in the process crush them, making them feel that they are incapable of doing things by themselves. To love someone is to reveal to them their capacities for life, the light that is shining in them.
Jean VanierRead
True peace can rarely be imposed from the outside; it must be born within and between communities through meetings and dialogue and then carried outward.
Jean VanierRead
In any case, community is not about perfect people. It is about people who are bonded to each other, each of whom is a mixture of good and bad, darkness and light, love and hate.
Jean VanierRead
We have to remind ourselves constantly that we are not saviours. We are simply a tiny sign, among thousands of others, that love is possible, that the world is not condemned to a struggle between oppressors and oppressed, that class and racial warfare is not inevitable.
Jean VanierRead
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We need a spirit of community, a sense that we are all in this together. If we have no sense of community, the American dream will wither.
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If you and your church were to disappear off the face of the earth tomorrow, would anyone in the community around you notice you were gone? And if the community did even notice would they say 'we are really glad they are gone', or 'we are really going to miss them'?
Timothy KellerRead