Thoughts on community by M Scott Peck

I have recently been reading 'The Different Drum' by psychologist, counselor, theologian and author M Scott Peck. Peck also wrote 'The road less travelled.' He has done much work in community-building (both in short-term retreat type settings and in broader life settings).

There are some profound insights into the character of true community. I thought I would share some via this blog.

“...like lesser kinds of happiness, the joy of community is a by-product. Simply seek happiness, and you are not likely to find it. Seek to crate and love without regard to your happiness, and you will likely be happy much of the time. Seeking joy in and of itself will not bring it to you. Do the work of creating community, and you will obtain it – although never exactly according to you schedule. Joy is an uncapturable yet utterly predictable side effect of genuine community.” The Different Drum, p 40

M Scott Peck talks of different stages which groups of people go through as they move towards true community: 1. Pseudocommunity (everyone is nice to each other; no problems or conflicts are allowed to surface) 2. Chaos (the group looks like it is in constant conflict and community seems a long way away) 3. Emptiness (the group begins to let go of, and lose, its ideals, hopes and dreams and cannot see what might come out of the process) and 4. True community.

Groups can transition between these stages in either direction, and even apparently skip stages (there are no formulas, only patterns).

Of the chaos part of the process Scott Peck says:

“ ‘There are only two ways out of chaos,’ I will explain to a group after it has spent a sufficient period of time squabbling and getting nowhere. ‘One is into organization – but organization is never community. The only other way is into and through emptiness.’ ” The Different Drum, p94.

“Groups assembled deliberately to form themselves into community routinely go through certain stages in the process. These stages, in order, are:

Pseudocommunity

Chaos

Emptiness

Community

Not every group that becomes a community follows this paradigm exactly…But in the process of community-making by design, this is the natural, usual order of things.” The Different Drum, p86.

'Life is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived.' The Different Drum, p98

Of the stage of emptiness, Scott Peck says:

'The transformation of a group from a collection of individuals into genuine community requires little deaths in many of those individuals. But it is also a process of group death, group dying. During the stage of emptiness my own gut feeling is often not so much the pain of watching individuals here and there undergoing little deaths and rebirths as it is the pain of witnessing a group in its death throes. The whole group seems to writhe and moan in its travail. Individuals will sometimes speak for the group. “It’s like we’re dying. The group is in agony. Can’t you help us? I didn’t know we’d have to die to become a community.”…

'When its death has been completed, open and empty, the group enters community. In this final stage a soft quietness descends. It is a kind of peace.' The Different Drum, p103.

I hope these thoughts challenge, inspire, and help you to learn.

The Hunger Games

'The Hunger Games' series of novels is one of the 'latest big things' in teenage fiction, the 'new Twilight.'
I just finished reading the first two novels in the trilogy. Yes, I am reading teenage fiction (could I give as my excuse that I need to know what my teenage daughter is reading? Or should I just acknowledge that I enjoyed the books for the good writing they are?).
It was compelling, even compulsive reading. I couldn't put the books down until I had finished them. Was barely able to stop for lunch. The Hunger Games tells of a post-apocalyptic future in North America, where 'The Capitol' rules all and imposes severe penalties on the 'Twelve Districts' for their rebellion 74 years before. Life is harsh for the heroine, Katniss Everdeen. It is a struggle to eat; a struggle to survive; a struggle to provide food for her family, her mother and young sister. Katniss often goes illegally hunting in the woods, but she still knows the gnawing pangs of hunger and the fear that she will not find enough.
When Katniss is sent as a 'tribute' to the Capitol for the annual 'Hunger Games', life becomes even harsher. Each District provides 2 tributes, a boy and a girl, each year. The Hunger Games are a little like the Colosseum of old: the tributes are sent into the Games Arena with a variety of weapons, and there they proceed to kill each other for the sport and entertainment of the citizens of the Capitol. There can only be one survivor of the Hunger Games each year. It's a brutal story and a brutal setting. As I finished the first book, I couldn't help thinking 'The saddest part of this is that for many people in our world this is not just a story but the harsh reality.'
The next day, I opened my mail, including an update from Medicins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) of their work around the world. It was a profound juxtaposition of reading material. It's perhaps easy to forget in our land of plenty that around a third of the world's population live in absolute poverty, without food security or access to medicine or such basic human needs as fresh water. And another third live in relative poverty - always wondering whether they will survive to the next harvest. Even today, there are more human slaves than at any time in history. In some places, children are literally forced to become soldiers, forced to kill and brutalise others or be killed themselves.
I'm not saying that we are as culpable as the citizens of the Capitol in The Hunger Games. But too often we do not think of how our actions, and our consumption, and our excesses, impact on others in the world. Even our language betrays us: for a long time, we have referred to poor countries as 'the third world' - as if they are somehow two worlds removed from our luxurious lives in 'the first world.' I now prefer to talk about 'the two thirds world' - reminding me that actually more people live in these conditions than in what I consider normality - or about 'the majority world.'
'Break the arm of the wicked and violent man,' prays the Psalmist, a prayer that makes no sense until encountering the brutality and oppression of the truly wicked and violent ones who indulge themselves in power games at the expense of the helpless victims. It means 'break the power of those who oppress. Break their ability to wreak their havoc on the innocent. Do not let them continue in their violence.'
In the Lord's prayer, we pray 'Give us today our daily bread.' This is a corporate prayer, a prayer for all of the world, not just for me. How does God want us to become part of God's answer to that prayer? How does praying this prayer on a daily basis lead us towards a life of greater simplicity and greater generosity? How can we stand against a culture of hyper-consumerism, recognising and living out the truth that my actions affect others? I do not know the answers to all these questions, and there are no glib solutions. But perhaps the asking of these questions, and the living of my life with intentionality in responding to them, will go part of the way to answering my own prayer.
Give us today our daily bread, Heavenly Father. May I be part of that.

A couple of great websites

I've just discovered a couple of thoughtful, insightful, and helpful websites on discipleship and the church. I commend them to you:

The Ekklesia Project (www.ekklesiaproject.org)
Nine Marks (www.9marks.org)

Great for thinking and challenge, encouragement and equipping!

Here I BE: a declaration of war on busyness

I hereby declare war on busy-ness.
I declare that I will say 'no' even to some of the 'good' things in life and ministry, so that I can give time and priority to what is best. The art of 'being,' the relationships and life which God has given me, that are not defined by what I 'do.'

Eugene Peterson writes: "Busyness is an illness of the spirit, a rush from one thing to another because there is no ballast of vocational integrity and no confidence in the primacy of grace. In order for there to be conversation and prayer that do the pastoral work of meeting the intimacy needs among people, there must be a wide margin of quiet leisure that defies the functional, technological, dehumanizing definitions that are imposed upon people by others in the community." (Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work, Eerdmans, 1980, p61-62, my emphasis).


Busyness is not just an illness of the spirit, but also a way that the enemy of our souls attacks us. It dehumanises us to the level of 'producers' and 'consumers' and makes us see other people as simply 'things' to be used for the fulfillment of our own needs.

So, again, I declare war on busyness, and invite you to join me in this battle.

The most powerful weapon we have in this battle is one of the smallest words in the English language: the word 'no.'

Behind the weapon of 'no' lies the bigger 'yes.' By saying 'no' to the possibly very good things which make us busy, we are saying yes to the more important things which make us human. For pastoral people, that means constantly evaluating the requests and needs (both implicit expectations and explicit requests) of people and instutions against the call of God, and asking the question, 'Is what I am being asked to do in line with what God has called me to do?' If the answer to that question is 'no,' then my answer to the request (implicit or explicit) must also be 'no.'
For everyone, this means evaluating our 'activity' against our 'identity.' Does getting a higher paid job mean less time with family? Is the trade-off one that humanises or dehumanises you? Does your job ask you to do something unethical, which is troubling your conscience? Can you say 'no' graciously to what is dehumanising? Or do you need to seek other alternatives?

What else does this war on busyness look like, I wonder?

Here I BE. Sometimes, I can DO no more.

The path to celery

Iain Paech was in my car on Easter Sunday. It's not a bad car. He said something about it being surprising that I had such a good car, and what I heard him say was something like this:
"Still, you are on a path to celery..."
To which my reply was "what are you talking about?" - I couldn't conceive at all what it might mean to be "on a path to celery..." I thought I was on a path to salvation!
Turns out what he actually said was, "Well, you are on a pastor's salary..."!!!

Podcasting!

Excuse my excitement! I've finally worked out how to podcast. So for anyone who's interested (probably 1.73 people out of six billion) you can now follow or listen to my sermons by clicking the link. Scary and exciting.
Hopefully it's worth it.

Simplicity

I have enjoyed reading emails from Rob Thomas, who styles himself part of 'The Life Poets' Simplicity Collective.' I think that the choice of simplicity is one of the ways we can fight against the 'tendrils of stuff' that so entwine and impoverish our lives in this consumerist culture. I think that the practice of Sabbath is another way to do this.
I heartily recommend The Simplicity Collective to you and hope you will join me in seeking to live more simply.
www.simplicitycollective.com