for community

It is in the shelter of each other that people live.

(Irish proverb) 

Making room for community is different from spending time with my extended network of friends and family.  In my current definition, it’s a network of people with whom I have a meaningful encounter, exchange or dialogue, whether online or in person.  

For example, I was fortunate enough to stumble across the Abbey of the Arts in 2011 and connect online with the worldwide Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks.  In 2010 I became part of Creative Response Arts, meeting weekly (when I could) with a group of ‘vulnerable adult’ artists.  They, along with the arts workers who facilitate the groups, continue to give me a social lifeline I desperately need.  This last year, I have been privileged to become a DAiSY-Chain artist, working with, and being supported by, those involved with disability arts in Surrey.  

I have recently been trying to ‘give back’ more actively, and regular readers of this blog will know about my bright-+/well project, which examines wellbeing and the built environment. In 2024 this brought about the wonderful community arts project, ‘how bright can you go?’.  This has delivered 239 mixed-media ‘welcome’ cards, made by children, young people and adults in a series of workshops (facilitated by me in conjunction with the New Ashgate Gallery, Farnham), to 239 new residences in a controversial town-centre development in Farnham, Surrey. 

Community is often about making cross-cultural, cross-economical, cross-experiential, connections.  One wonderful example of this kind of outreach comes from the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford.  In 2016 Jenny Balfour-Paul offered a collection of material which she described as ‘Textiles from the Arab World’ to the Pitt Rivers Museum, material which shortly became a focal point for a programme called MultakaOxford. 

Multaka, meaning ‘meeting point’ in Arabic, explores different ways of engaging with heritage, while developing opportunities for intercultural dialogue. This has resulted in an online exhibition, ‘Weaving Connections’, which interprets highlights from this collection from the perspectives of Multaka volunteers, the collector and Pitt Rivers Museum curators. This allows the exhibition commentary to foreground contemporary relevance, cross-cultural connections and personal stories about textiles, ceramics, silverware and photography from Egypt, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Senegal, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen. Thabo, a MultakaOxford volunteer, says,

“I’ve always said to people about Multaka – we can talk irrespective of religion, irrespective of colour, irrespective of language, and say: this is me; this is my Story.”

Community, finally, is about sharing my story and listening to yours – and vice-versa..  It is about me removing my defensive barriers and becoming vulnerable enough to just be alongside others  To be – without trying to fix; until ultimately, we might help one another to flourish, in whatever creative way that may be. 

I pray that, in the words of Maya Angelou (below), I will learn ‘how to look beyond complexion and see community’.

Thunder rumbles in the mountain passes
And lightning rattles the eaves of our houses.
Flood waters await us in our avenues.

Snow falls upon snow, falls upon snow to avalanche
Over unprotected villages.
The sky slips low and grey and threatening.

We question ourselves.
What have we done to so affront nature?
We worry God.
Are you there? Are you there really?
Does the covenant you made with us still hold?

Into this climate of fear and apprehension, Christmas enters,
Streaming lights of joy, ringing bells of hope
And singing carols of forgiveness high up in the bright air.
The world is encouraged to come away from rancor,
Come the way of friendship.

It is the Glad Season.
Thunder ebbs to silence and lightning sleeps quietly in the corner.
Flood waters recede into memory.
Snow becomes a yielding cushion to aid us
As we make our way to higher ground.

Hope is born again in the faces of children
It rides on the shoulders of our aged as they walk into their sunsets.
Hope spreads around the earth. Brightening all things,
Even hate which crouches breeding in dark corridors.

In our joy, we think we hear a whisper.
At first it is too soft. Then only half heard.
We listen carefully as it gathers strength.
We hear a sweetness.
The word is Peace.
It is loud now. It is louder.
Louder than the explosion of bombs.

We tremble at the sound. We are thrilled by its presence.
It is what we have hungered for.
Not just the absence of war. But, true Peace.
A harmony of spirit, a comfort of courtesies.
Security for our beloveds and their beloveds.

We clap hands and welcome the Peace of Christmas.
We beckon this good season to wait a while with us.
We, Baptist and Buddhist, Methodist and Muslim, say come.
Peace.
Come and fill us and our world with your majesty.
We, the Jew and the Jainist, the Catholic and the Confucian,
Implore you, to stay a while with us.
So we may learn by your shimmering light
How to look beyond complexion and see community.

It is Christmas time, a halting of hate time.

On this platform of peace, we can create a language
To translate ourselves to ourselves and to each other.

At this Holy Instant, we celebrate the Birth of Jesus Christ
Into the great religions of the world.
We jubilate the precious advent of trust.
We shout with glorious tongues at the coming of hope.
All the earth’s tribes loosen their voices
To celebrate the promise of Peace.

We, Angels and Mortals, Believers and Non-Believers,
Look heavenward and speak the word aloud.
Peace. We look at our world and speak the word aloud.
Peace. We look at each other, then into ourselves
And we say without shyness or apology or hesitation.

Peace, My Brother.
Peace, My Sister.
Peace, My Soul.

‘Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem’

― Maya Angelou (2005)

This poem was first read at the 2005 White House tree-lighting ceremony – listen to Maya Angelou recite it here:

Maya Angelou – White House Christmas 2005 – Music by Charlie Barnett

new shelters? (iPhone image)