One of the sad truths of life is that all the progress of human history has failed to make any change in the difficulties we have in getting on together, as members of families, neighbourhoods, ethnic, linguistic and racial groups, or nations. Since Cain murdered Abel in jealous rage and asked God, in anguish, "Am I my brother's keeper?", we've struggled to understand what our responsibilities are to each other and how we can possibly live peaceably together for all our sakes.

Along with some of you, I went to a lecture by journalist Linda McQuaig on Thursday night, on "Reviving the Notion of the Common Good," and realized that if we've lost such a notion we may be further behind than ever in our attempts at peaceful co-existence, let alone the creation of nurturing communities. Then I heard feminist theologian Rosemary Radford Reuther on Friday night and heard her concern for supporting families in all their diverse forms - families, with which nearly all of us are familiar, in their best and worst incarnations, the most accessible and vital community for many of us. We need to find ways of supporting one another, but we find it very difficult at almost all levels.

There are people who believe strongly that we must care about those closest to us before we turn our attention to issues of peace and justice in the wider world, but I've come to see how intimately connected the two things are -- our ability as individuals to care for those near to us and our ability as ethnic groups or nations or races to co-exist with each other. I think we all choose narrower or wider degrees of focus for our concerns, with perfect validity, just as the contributions of a microbiologist and an astrophysicist are equally valuable. But I do agree that if we can't find ways to get on with our nearest and dearest we don't have much hope of solving the problems of race relations or international conflict.

I find myself in good company in making the connection between our close interpersonal relations and the world of international politics. In his book The Different Drum, subtitled "Community Making and Peace," psychiatrist Scott Peck says that in order to build community between two individuals or between two superpowers, the same basic attitudes are essential. We must recognize the profound differences between individuals, nations and cultures, and at the same time we must maintain faith in our ability to transcend, go beyond, those differences. Peck believes that community-building is equally important at the personal, national and international level, and that the formation of true communities at all these levels is the best hope for world peace.

We tend to use the word "community" rather freely and loosely these days, and even confusingly, to refer to any group of people in proximity, such as our hometown or our congregation, regardless of the quality of relationships which we experience there. We like the idea of community, with its suggestion of old-fashioned village life, but we've also been deeply influenced by the reverence for "rugged individualism" which is so much a part of the North American sense of virtue.

The experience of community in its most fundamental meaning, "unity with,"an honest openness to, and sharing with, one another, is almost unknown to us except sometimes in our romantic relationships, where it's connected with sex and desire. For those who are not coupled, community is often non-existent. I wonder how many of you find this lack of community in your own lives and wish you didn't. If so, you may want to think about the need for smaller circles within this congregation -- but be aware that small groups are not all sweetness and light: I'll be describing some of the harder aspects of community-building as we go along.

Individuation, becoming separate from each other, beginning with separating from our parents, is the aim of our growth to adulthood. But we are also social beings by nature. Linda McQuaig stressed that in her talk on "the Common Good." Rosemary Reuther told us about the women in the past who had to choose between family and career and, if they chose career, bonded with other women in family-type arrangements. In community we can reach greater wholeness, through interdependence. But our stress on individualism makes it hard for us to achieve community, even in the places we might most hope to find it. As Scott Peck writes:

[Often] someone will come to me during the break [in one of my lectures] with a question. When I say, "I thought I requested you not to," the usual response is "Yes, but, Dr. Peck, this is terribly important to me, and I can't ask it in the group because some of the members of my church are here." . . . such a remark speaks of the normal level of trust and intimacy and vulnerability in our churches and other so-called "communities."

Since we are unique and value our individuality, we are bound to be lonely to some extent, but not to the extent that we often are. We can trade some of our loneliness for vulnerability and openness. This is what people do when they get married: marriage is a small, long-term community of two -- it's just one example of community. There's an Apache Blessing often used in wedding services which includes the words, "Now there is no more loneliness for you." I don't think it's entirely realistic, but it is the primary hope of people being married, I think.

The dynamics of any community have something in common with marriage -- the thoughtfulness and decision that precedes it, the awareness that individual differences require adjustments to be made, the need to stay with it during the rough patches. Community members are intentional about their membership in the community, and they commit time and energy to maintaining the community's health. The community which it's worthwhile committing to is a safe place for its members, one in which they're not afraid to open up their inmost selves, and it's a healing place. In order to achieve this safety and healing, members must commit themselves to work hard; they believe it's worth it. Would it be worth it for you to work hard to create community? If so, you may be interested in another question: How does community happen?

Sometimes crisis gives rise to community. Some of you may have experienced the camaraderie of wartime, whether in active service or simply engaged in the business of surviving. Communities which happen in that kind of situation often don't survive the crisis, but they're lovely while they last. Twelve-step groups are another example of communities which arise from crisis, and they usually do survive, perhaps by maintaining the sense that there's a continuing crisis. "Any moment, you or I may fall off the wagon again." Other communities happen by accident, but the most successful ones seem to be designed. Scott Peck says that the achievement of community is almost guaranteed if certain conditions are met. These are, primarily, the commitment already mentioned and the courage to go through the uncomfortable stages which nearly always precede true community, which he calls chaos and emptiness.

But even before that, and perhaps most important, there must be willingness to move out of the very first stage in which most groups such as congregations find themselves: "pseudo- community" as Peck calls it, a kind of beginning stage which isn't quite real. I think the phrase "pseudo-community" is an unfortunate term because it sounds negative: we think of "pseudo" as "phony", which is bad. After reading Peck's book, I wished he'd used the term "pre-community", which sounds so much more positive and is, I think, more accurate for what he's describing. Pseudo-community is comfortable. Members talk in generalities (for example, they say, "We have the same kinds of ideas about religion here") and deny their differences. It's only once differences are allowed to surface that the group can move on.

Do you recognize any of the signs of pseudo-community, or pre-community, in our congregation? I think I do. Members of this congregation seem to me, on the whole, as in most other congregations, to be close but not very close, to be cordial and friendly and even warm, but not intimate, to stay some distance from each other for the most part. Our preference for separateness is perfectly normal, it protects our privacy, but it's not community in Scott Peck's sense. It may not be possible for a whole congregation to be a community: in the fullest and deepest sense, community may only be possible in smaller groups within the congregation. As most of you know, some of us have been thinking about how we may be able to set up structures which will encourage small communities.

If a group of people, large or small, is able to get beyond the first stage of community building and move out of the politeness of pseudo-community towards something more honest and real, they have to be prepared to enter the second stage, the stage of Chaos. Scott Peck says that this second phase occurs when differences and conflicts between people become obvious and are acknowledged -- and then attempts are made to resolve them by converting each other!

I think we see glimpses of this occasionally in our congregation: I've seen it when some of you have had problems with my religious language, or when we've allowed ourselves to show our real feelings about the Welcoming Congregation project, or when someone expresses strong feelings about what social action we should or shouldn't be engaged in and someone else suggests that they should keep their feelings to themself. We don't do it very much or for very long, because we have this idea that our treasured tolerance of other people's ideas means not arguing with them, so we tend to revert back to politeness.

I think it's important to recognize that while the "chaos" stage of fighting and struggle can be painful, it's actually a step beyond pseudo-community, with its smooth agreeableness, a step towards honesty and true community. Chaos is painful, however, and usually when people find themselves in it they try to escape from it by replacing the leadership of the group or by changing the organizational structure. Peck believes that true community is not to be found in these ways, or in retreating to the easier, accustomed ways. Rather, it's to be found in fully experiencing the chaos and moving through it.

I'm sorry to have to tell you that after Chaos, there's still another uncomfortable stage to go through: the stage of Emptiness. Peck says that emptiness is the bridge between chaos and real community. It's the point at which the security of politeness and conventionality is long gone and there no longer seems to be much possibility, either, of fixing individual people or the group as a whole to fit our preferences. Emptiness involves giving up the barriers to communication, such as preconceptions, prejudices, ideology, solutions, and the need to fix and control. It involves acknowledging and sharing our common brokenness and giving up our pretensions of self-sufficiency.

It means seeing each other for the frail, inadequate, needy persons we each are. This may be particularly difficult for Unitarian Universalists to do, since our humanistic strain emphasizes human adequacy. But individually we are each broken and empty, and if we are interested in achieving community each of us needs to ask ourself: am I as an individual prepared to share my emptiness with the other people in this group, this potential community?

Community is born, Peck suggests, as people begin, out of emptiness, to give themselves to each other. Healing takes place when we are seeing each other's true self and no-one is attempting to convert or heal or fix. Members of a real community are open to each other's pain. They don't try to smooth it over or ignore it; they listen and respond, without needing to "fix" it. Community values individual differences. When those differences give rise to struggle and difficulty, the struggle ultimately leads to a new collective understanding and insight. In my small experience, both in my personal and family life, and in the congregations with which I've been involved, this is the hardest thing of all - to give up trying to convert or heal or fix, but simply to listen to one another and try to respond with understanding. Let's not underestimate the difficulty -- it may even be too hard -- but, paradoxically, it can be transformative.

Community membership transcends any bonds which may exist between pairs or sub- groups. When the group meets together, the relationship of each member with the community is paramount; it takes precedence over the other relationships which may exist in the group, such as marriage, friendships and pairings of various kinds. All the members of a community take responsibility for leadership. There may be a non-authoritarian type of leader who is designated to assist the group in forming community, although not always, and if there is, that leader plays a similar role to the rabbi in this little story:

A rabbi was lost in the woods. For three months he searched and searched but could not find his way out. Finally, one day in his searching he encountered a group from his synagogue who had also become lost in the forest. Overjoyed, they exclaimed, "Rabbi, how wonderful we have found you. Now you can lead us out of the woods!" "I am sorry I cannot do that," the rabbi replied, "for I am as lost as you. What I can do, because I have had more experience being lost, is to tell you a thousand ways you cannot get out of the woods. With this poor help, working with each other, perhaps we shall be able to find our way out together."

True communities, real ones in Scott Peck's sense, are strong enough to handle many kinds of individual problems and pathologies, though they're no substitute for professional help in some situations. True community helps us to squarely confront realities, the actual situations that we find ourselves in, not the way we think the situation ought to be. In community we face those realities as gently and respectfully as possible, remembering that each member "may be the Messiah". (Do you remember that story of the monastery which was dying out until a Rabbi advised the monks to act to each other as if one of them -- no-one knew which -- was the Messiah? It made a huge difference to their life together.)

As a congregation, we affirm the seven Unitarian Universalist principles, with their emphasis on justice, equity and compassion at all levels of human interaction. But as a congregation we show all the usual ambivalence and hesitation that society at large shows about getting too involved with one another, too committed to each other's well-being. Alongside my own quite extreme hesitation and ambivalence there's a conviction that unless I'm willing to commit myself to the formation of true community, on however small a scale to start with, I'm not likely to be able to contribute much to the cause of peace and justice in the world. Unless I can allow myself to accept some sacrifice of my own self-sufficiency, for the sake of closeness to others, I'll only be talking about community-making and peace, not doing it.

James Luther Adams, the late great Unitarian Universalist theologian, says in his book called On Being Human Religiously,

. . . there is in human nature a deep-seated and universal tendency for both individuals and groups to ignore the demands of mutuality and thus to waste freedom or abuse it . . .

The element of conflict inherent in us and in human relations with our neighbours can, as St. Paul knew, be dealt with only by a regenerated will, a will committed to the principles of liberty and justice and love, a will prepared by a faith, a decision, a commitment sufficient to cope with the principalities and powers of the world.

The demands of mutuality (or community), the need for a "regenerated will" committed to overcoming the conflicts between us and our neighbours -- these are the very same things Scott Peck is talking about in The Different Drum. Adams and Peck both believe that peace and justice demand struggle and commitment. Peck says, "Community neither comes naturally nor is it purchased cheaply." But community is, according to Peck, the pearl of great price for which it's worth giving up everything. He says, "In and through community lies the salvation of the world." And then he goes on,

. . . I fail to see how we ... will be able to communicate effectively with [peoples of other cultures] when generally we don't even know how to communicate with the neighbours next door, much less our neighbors on the other side of the tracks. True communication, like the charity it requires, begins at home. Perhaps peacemaking should start small.

I hope that some of you will feel that this congregation is a good place to start, and that in the coming months at least a few of us can commit ourselves to the formation of true communities which will be our own small embodiment of the peace which goes beyond co-existence. It may be in some already existing committees or circles, or new ones of the same kind; it may be in groups formed for the express purpose of practising community; it may be in task-oriented groups which bond together around social concerns or finance or overseeing ministry or exploring spirituality. Whatever the setting, it won't be easy or painless; it will require us to find out more about each other and each other's needs than we may ever have wanted to know. It will require us to respond to those needs by giving of ourselves. I think that by doing so we'll be contributing to harmonious relations on this earth; like Scott Peck, I believe that in and through community lies the salvation of the world.