Community is an onion of separateness peeled back to form the whole.

What is community? Maybe something only a few of us are aware of — as community is life — though we are all alive — it is only a part of our lives.

Communities exist on the web and the members may never meet or see or speak to one another in person, yet they are in contact and remain informed on each other.

I wish to speak of a different sort of commune: a more tangible association, which seeds the mind and the spirit. A family is something most of us aspire to — this is a private personal group — yet is a community of kinds. Without direct blood relations a community is often social public and sometimes casual.

The communities that exist around libraries offer support to many; parents; students; intellectuals; artists and the generally interested.

Appreciation often has given birth to community as energy is shared and common to otherwise unrelated people.



Contact and gathering strengthen an individual’Äôs resolve — and contact requires communication — if you like faith and even kindness.

Communication — verbal, literary, and artistic done to describe another is to communicate even if you are alone: and so the artist initially before finding an audience or an agent forms a community of one.

The community of artists spans time, and exists in the minds of people as well as in physical world — much more so than the internet. Art is a very real and also virtual reality: from these associations we gain hope and freedom; courage and inspiration and ultimately growth.

Osita Dec07/Jan08