Italiano

"Where two or three ..."
Among dreams, intuitions and projects

ANTONIETTA POTENTE

"We are family of everything that grows, produces, matures, is exhaused, dies and is reborn. Every child has many fathers, uncles, brothers, grandparents. Grandparents are dead people and the mountains. Sons of the earth and sun, watered by the rains, males and females rains, we are all relatives of the seeds, corn, rivers and foxes howling and announcing the coming year as it will be announcing. The stones are relatives of snakes and lizards. Corn and beans are brothers to each other, grow together without fighting. Potatoes are the daughters and mothers of those who planted, because who creates  is created. Everything is sacred, and also we. Sometimes we are gods and the gods are sometimes simply little people. So they say, so they know, the natives of the Andes "(EDUARDO GALEANO).

Echoes of reality

"We are family ...": a strange Community’s recognition; memory and wish, archetype and inspiration for the future of a complex reality which we also call history and, always, even if sometimes we do not like, history of the Community. The history of each of us, the history of peoples, but also of the earth and the sky: males rains and females rains... we are all relatives. I start my speech with this text because I would like, immediately, to address facing the issue not as an exclusive  problem of religious life, but as a restlessness to all those who live in this history, and not only humans, but all the more varied cosmic biodiversity.
I think, in fact, that the dream of community is a divine dream and, like all divine dream, is too big to be the property and interest of a few people. So this story - which otherwise I would report with another story of Jewish-Christian myth of coexistence and living together and that is Isaiah 11 - it is not poetic narrative of ancestral cultures, but a perspective.
My wish, sharing these reflections, is to awaken and to reiterate the prospect of community or communion, not as something of our own, but that affects everyone and we can rethink involving as many people as possible.

In addition, to be able to help and give substance to the narrative of the Andean cosmic vision, I remember socio-political context where I come from: the context of Bolivia, where since 2005 the dream of the reconstruction of an ancestral fabric of the community has become a political project of an entire country precisely why, today, in its new Constitution, it defines "Multinational and Communitary State." And I say this with the knowledge of the effort of a people who, nowadays, is called to watch over this dream. The Community Dream has a long history and, even before to be religious history, is history of more human of individuals and peoples.

Recognize everyone's dream

I think that the theme of our reflection can not be dealt as analyzing an object. The community is not an object to be observed and neither an outside paradigm that someone proposes to imitate. This argument has its own history, and a very complex history. It carries with it the same human physiognomy; features and behaviors of peoples, cultures and individual; visions of God and of the world, even if, as often happens with other aspects of life, sometimes we try to appropriate surrounding and defining them, almost really they were mere objects.
Perhaps the more suited literary genre to discuss and talk about the community is the narrative genre, not in the sense of feeling witnesses of a model or writers and authors of something that needs to bear witness to others, but as a narrative history of our human dreams, of our intuitions, visions and projects along the different eras.

I think, therefore, that religious life is confronted not with models, but with infinite and ethical desire of humanity and creation: learning to live together. Research and effort of life itself, in its deepest biogenetic fibers, and also efforts of humanity, of women and men in all the ages, which follow developmental, revolutionary and revelatory processes.

My proposal therefore is not a description of a community model which would be recovered or invented, but an help to recognize it as a dream of all the people, in a world where geographical coordinates seem to be shortened and, at the same time, in a world that reveals more and more different features and endless diversity, in the claims and in the histories of identity of individuals and cultures.

So, rather than presenting a Community template, more or less suited to our age, I intend to recognize and support the research that, in a different way, accompanies human individuals and groups in the stages of their history in order to build spaces of worthy, just, supportive, creative life...

Interest in life

Community life is a process of maturity of individuals and human groups and not just;  a long and sometimes difficult process, more like a steady apprenticeship than to an ordered organization. For this in the religious life one relates with the votes, thus emphasizing that it is an existential journey that involves not only faith but also our bodies, relationships with others and with things, in the option of Justice (poverty), in that of non-violence relationship (chastity) and in the humble search for those learning to walk humbly with God and becomes responsible and creative man and woman over time (obedience).

Now, in the religious life, community life appears as one of the most dynamic aspects. In fact, we could talk about a true life cycle and as in any life cycle, even the religious life is marked by the birth, development and death. Moments of growth, evolution, involution, as someone wrote, are independent of short-or long purely chronological term, in the sense that they are not related to years of time, but what I would call the spirit, breath, soul, a meaning. The ajayu, as they say in the Andean tradition, the life force, what makes someone or something alive and not simply existing in the history.

It is not fact, learning to count us, but to live and live with others.1 By itself, chronologically, this life cycle could also be short. It is not the duration and length that interests us, but life itself and how we stay in the life.

Perhaps this could be a theme to rethink about the religious life. How to return the  spirit to this life style, how to return the ajayu?  In fact we have lost, while remaining in the history and in today's society in institutional form and as a group. In Andean cultures, we would say: Who took away the ajayu? How to get it back? Interestingly, almost always a ajayu is loosen by a fright: the fear.

How many times throughout history, the institutional religious life was strong, organized and, instead, inside, suffered deep recessions and lived with signs of death, independent of the number of people who formed the community! The religious life, therefore, and community life,  can’t  be described only in chronological order. His transformations are a bustle, toing and froing of energy, ups and downs, doubts and many, many attempts, as if its existence is constantly provoked by the vision of reality that surrounds it. Maybe there is a question underlying this issue: a question similar to that  evangelical which supported the research of the first  community, "Are you or do we wait for another ..." (Mt 11.3), echoes of uneasiness , anxiety not only mystical but also political, "Lord, when did we see ...?" (cf Mt 25,31-46).

Among evolutions, revolutions and revelations

Then, probably, to talk about the community and feel the dynamism of this issue, we are also required to revisit the history of the Church and read the different Community styles as moments of different understanding of the insights, dreams and, sometimes, even of fear. There are Community models, in fact, that reflect more the need of human beings to defend themselves and put on a social status, which recognize and accommodate the archetypal  dream, divine, human and cosmic.

Revisiting the History

So let us ask how it developed this style of community life through the centuries, between linear continuity and broken breaks. In this case it would be revisited, if possible, the initial perception , intuition in memory of them: women and men who have preceded us, and who interpreted the dream of Jesus as God's faithful dream and started to walk in history in the echo of some memories: "You can not serve two masters ..." "do not like ...", "where two or three are gathered in my name I will stand in their midst." Mystical –political experiences born out of a very small project, after the trauma of the death of their friend and teacher. Intensive research,  expressed in the words of the community of John: "They have taken away my Lord and I do not know where they put ..." (cf. Jn 20:13), and then get to try. But even
desire to continue to perpetuate what they had seen, heard, looked at, learned (cf. 1 John 1,1-4). And here the emphasis is on life was made manifest, not on a style, a model.
But the history continues and so its metamorphosis. It is not my intention and I do not think this is the appropriate place to review in detail this part of history, but it is clear that, in the religious life, there have been profound changes, both interior and exterior. We are born in a solitary search, grow up with Gnostic-Manichaean influences : we'll structure in monasticism, between East and West. Fuga mundi humbly to approach the mystery, for some; and fuga mundi to exit from the center of the world of power and privileges, for others. Loneliness as a cross line of these choices, but between monasteries, monasteries, convents ... So many different styles, all marked by faithful research, not free from  historical, cultural, social influences. A question of loyalty, then, but also a matter of gender, social and ecclesial reforms; east, west; history of transformation is also due to new discoveries and new geographies.

Rupture of a scheme

So, our issue is not tied to one style and then to the question: which style to follow, which is best? Rather, it connects to the sense, of what in the individual and collective imaginary of all evokes the term community.

And it is here that reawakens our concern, anxiety: every human community is born around projects or dreams of life and thus of liberation. Perhaps it is in this sense that we should read the text of Matthew’s Gospel: "Anyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for my name, and will receive a hundredfold in inherit eternal life ... "(Matt. 19:29). It is not, in fact,  of a reward made for a sacrifice. You need to get over the still image  community  or life together over the centuries become a paradigm untouched, in some cases hierarchical, patriarchal or matriarchal image of society, while Jesus expanded these encoded borders and offers others. In the Gospel of Matthew, in fact, the description of the typical official context of ties,  unthinkable to overcome: fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers... Jesus opens a new perspective that disciples are trying to achieve. This text not only breaks the classical scheme of family ties, but also economic ones: fields, houses ... constraints that could hinder the relationship, or forge them.

Paths

At this point, I pick up a few precious strands of our Jewish-Christian tradition. As I mentioned, living together is a progressive realization of the human being in its historical, individual and collective evolutions. It is a sign of maturity, the perception of one's life in the midst of others and to a world inhabited not only by others, but also by the Other.

Learning to live together

One of the most beautiful aspects in the description of the first Christian communities is to see them gathered around in search of the meaning of learning to live together and using  a very warm and human symbolism. Synoptic Gospels say: "Jesus took a child and had him stand among them ..." and: "... then called a little child and had him stand among them ..." (cf Mk 9.36, Mt 18, 2).

A child, the symbol of everything that has to grow or is growing. Instead we have reduced this problem to a specific discourse, a model or something that already indicates certainty and stability. If there is a stand in the middle, means that this is an attempt of circular construction; and if in the middle there's a baby  is because we are growing. According to Matthew's version, the description is more detailed. For the  community of Matthew small people is not caught in the law of Moses, that who transgress it more easily. In other words, they are sinners, the more weak. This is beautiful, the Community dream was born in a atmosphere of failure, precarious, limit, not only in human but also in the religious sphere: they can not always put into practice the law. Instead we think as we wrapped the image in the Community in an apparent cloud of perfection, a model and example for others who "do not live like us."

Recreating a Presence

In chapter 18 of Matthew we find the verbs that occur with insistence: to accept, not to scandalize. According to the Greek version, the scandal is a stumbling block on the road, a trap. Maybe the Community scandal is this, that you believe you have nothing to do with the effort of others with their research, their growth. The scandal is the attitude of sufficiency and arrogance; attitudes that, in  interpersonal and socio-political relationships, creates profound imbalances and delay the possibility of living together.

 
Moreover, Chapter 18 closes with the reference to forgiveness without limits: a slow process of transformation of relationships and life, without which it is difficult to go in the deeper transformation of one's or of entire human groups existences. From these and other texts, there are important clues to understanding what it means in the New Testament universe the community life.

The first communities arise around a nostalgia: to recreate the atmosphere of "Presence", because Christ is not there anymore. Just think of Emmaus or description of a few episodes after the resurrection: on the shore of the lake, in the house ... To do this it is important the constant reminder: "He had said to us...", and in this memory Jesus’ words went back to mind: "Where two or three are gathered ... I will be among them ..." (Matt. 18:20). This means that the community is not an organizational plan, to carry on something, but, like any true emotional bond, the possibility of life. For the disciples and the disciples life together is a guarantee of his return: "Where two or three ...." In this life with Christ is in the middle, ie at the center: our attention is on him.

Style mystical and political

Another aspect could be of a community that was created to recover the messianic dream that Jesus had shared with his disciples, men and women: the dream of justice, which could be defined as the breaking of bread. I am not referring to the celebrative cult of the Eucharist, but to a life shared with everyone and everywhere. In the post-Easter encounter, meeting, everything is consecrated around food: the longing , the nostalgia for the banquet, eating  together and returning the food to those without. The style of community is thus a critical style, mystical-political. Mystical, because it recreates the presence, recalls it listening and constantly searching; political,  because it circulating distributes assets, namely the possibility of life. The breaking of the bread is closer act to the needs of each and every one. So we understand why the complex structure of the first Christian communities. It is not institutional, organizational complexity, but one that arises from bringing together different people, overcoming ancient cultural and social canons of the time. It is complex because they live with multiple identities: the foreigners (the pagans) are incorporated ; eunuchs are baptized; it makes the community in just and solidarity women’s house; it works like all ...
In a socio-religious, that used violence to maintain the existing order, in a society where a clear separation between men and women is keeping, while is  cultivating the practice nonviolence, gender equality. The tradition, in these young Christian communities, is held by the elders (priests) who had seen, heard, contemplated ... and, in particular, by  women, and not by a doctrine. Women maintains the connection, continuity, after the trauma of the death of Jesus and the wonder of the resurrection. In this community it cultivates the spirituality of a God conscious of insecurity of those who find hard to live, contrary to an official culture of exclusion. The space, around which reconstructs this experience of communion, is not only cultural space (the temple), but the house. Hence the importance of the "domestic church", which is not "family" as we translate badly, but they are the communities in the house (Martha, Mary and Lazarus’ home), in the spaces of everyday life.

Cultivating Community's dream

The gestures, the actions that offer this style are simple and reflect the sacred mentality of life in its everyday expressions: the exchange, mutual support, care, interpretation of events and the Scriptures. Everything seems to be contrary to the statutory scheme of the gestures, the actions of cult: purification, offerings, sacrifices ... gestures that bordering always the danger of excluding someone and create an elite group of people. In these communities, however, remains alive echo the words of Jesus that stretches the mind and the spaces and re-converts the relationships: "... these are my brothers, sisters, and my mother ..." (cf. Lk 8.19 -21, Mk 3, 31).

Following Jesus is an alternative to rethink the relationship, not to invent an organization, but overcoming those fixed, programmed, hierarchical links binding and not allowing  you to walk (cf Mk 10.28-31).

The problem is not to define a style, but to cultivate this dream, this passion that we could pull out of personal and communal, individual and institutional egotism, egocentrism. Perhaps this is the way to recover the animus. No one is teacher, no one can give examples of community life and much less imposing models, but we all are researchers, women and men, of life.
Those adagios that have filled the religious life, before being dogmatic definition, actually meant this: availability, itinerancy, detachment from things and people ... We have fixed them, like Luther's theses, on the church doors, or like the phylacteries of the Pharisees. Instead these were simple intuitions of life. It is normal  to be asked for availability, which is not heroism, because the availability makes us alive, we call into contact with many people. It is normal to be asked for sobriety, because it is difficult to move with the idea that everything is ours. But perhaps we should ask ourselves: How do we cultivate these attitudes? What nourishes the community‘s dream?

The memory of Christ "in the middle", of course; the memory of Him "in the center," as interest and listening to the kairos, the opportune time. These events (kairoi) speak, unfold in our daily history and that of all. This is docility and obedience. Unfortunately, we expect to teach the styles, so that others may fit/connect into our reality. The communities are formed day after day, amid real demands of life.

To dare community

The religious life can not compare with models, but with the infinite and ethics wish of humanity and creation:  learning to live together. An effort  and search for life itself, in its inmost depths biogenetic fibers , but also an effort of humanity, of women and men in all ages. Effort that comes from evolutionary, revolutionary and revelation’s process of life self.
This is really to dare living in community. Today this is perhaps one of the most real to be discovered, in this historical moment that makes us doubt whether it is possible to live together and, for many, even more dramatically, whether it is possible to live. Then we should rethink this issue, not to confine us and reconfirm styles already acquired, but to enlarge the possibility of life. It almost seems that the Community arises from dared gestures: daring to think that you can live in another way which not only human relations, but also includes all the reality that surrounds us, with its natural resources and its difficult balance.
The crisis of a Community can certainly be  the crisis of a model, but most of all is the crisis of individuals; is the crisis of our faith, when we sense that there is no model and no one is an expert on this subject, and never will be, because it is the opportunity to learn to live with others and, therefore, a constant search. The crisis of a Community, perhaps, is due to hear not enough a style thought as meaningful and important, almost the unique example for all.

 It is the crisis of the perceiver, different  from what Paul VI wrote in Populorum Progressio,  when he spoke of the Church, expert in humanity. Maybe we hear this: so we are not expert in humanity. Indeed, the most complex problems of our life concern this lack of experience  with the human, very human.

The real problem is wishing to live together, learning to live with others, because others continue  living or come back to life. The models are related, are changing or can change. In this sense  I can not and do not want to tell my experience, I can only tell about a  wish, I can only write timid visions that sometimes I feel like I have, like John, standing on an island, understood not as a geographical place, but symbolic: one point among many others of the universe. And the most beautiful vision  that I have of history and Community life is similar to that of Revelation: "After these things I saw: here a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language. All were standing ... "(Rev 7.9).
This for me is the most beautiful experience: you feel that  from an island expand the boundaries and that these boundaries and those who live there are so many that we can not even count the size. While I perceive that, I also ask forgiveness because, instead, our Community horizons are too narrow and our vision is too narrow-minded  with life and its abundance. Faced with these concerns, I would have a bigger imagination to see the unseen and say: we can live together.

Antonietta Potente op
Teologa, missionaria in Bolivia
wayrurito@gmail.com