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
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Community fosters support and healing by enabling collective action.
This quote emphasizes the unique power of community in providing support and assistance to individuals, especially those who are struggling. By coming together and sharing responsibilities, we can create an environment where individuals feel welcomed and can receive the help they need to regain their confidence and heal from their hardships.
Themes
CommunitySupportHealingStrengthResponsibility
In practice
Example use cases
During team meetings to encourage collaboration amongst members.
More from Jean Vanier
All quotes βWe 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
When we begin to believe that there is greater joy in working with and for others, rather than just for ourselves, then our society will truly become a place of celebration.
Jean VanierRead
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We need a new kind of citizenship, so that we can see citizens as themselves earning the rank of patriot because of their involvement in their community affairs....We as a society need to be encouraging people to focus not just on individual wants but on serving the larger community.
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Frequent worshippers are also significantly more active citizens. They are more likely to belong to community organizations, especially those concerned with young people, health, arts and leisure, neighborhood and civic groups and professional associations.
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