In my last blog entry, I wrote about a group of former seminary classmates with whom I have been doing Zoom get-togethers for the last two and a half years. In writing about this experience, I came to believe that what kept a small group of 10 to 12 of us coming back each week was that we had developed a community. That led me to think about other communities I had been a part of during my lifetime.
Some of the characteristics of communities are that they can be small or large, based on geography or social interests, short-term or long-term in duration, chosen or imposed. I wrote in my last blog entry that communities give our lives meaning and a sense of belonging. I think they also provide a support network for us as we deal with life’s ups and downs.
While we choose some communities because of things we have in common with others, there are many times that we end up in a community because of circumstances in which we find ourselves. Once we are in that community, we will most likely find that we have shared interests with some members of that community and may form a smaller community with those individuals.
For example, I attended Catholic school from kindergarten through 8th Grade. Although my parents chose where we would live, they did not choose my school. I attended the closest Catholic school. We moved to Somerville (NJ) when I was 10 and from 5th to 8th grade I attended a Catholic school where there was one class in each grade. We had a different teacher each year but I was with the same students for all four years. I was good friends with some of them, played with others at recess and kept in touch with some after we graduated from 8th grade. I felt a connection with all my classmates but had stronger ties to some than to others.
After graduating from 8th grade, i went to a Catholic minor seminary near Baltimore for high school and 2 years of college, assigned there by my bishop. In my freshman year of high school, there were over 100 students in my class. Plus there were five other grades. We lived at the seminary for the school year in a very regimented situation. Bells rang throughout the day to direct us to the next activity. We all ate breakfast, lunch and dinner in a common dining hall at our assigned tables with 7 other students. All of us in the seminary (students and faculty) belonged to a fairly large community. But there were also smaller communities within the larger one. Each grade formed a community, to some extent. Again, we had no choice there. As in any school, smaller groups formed, based on interests. Think about jocks, nerds, band kids, etc., in any high school. We had the additional circumstance of living together through the school year. We may have had assigned seats in the dining hall, but after dinner we were hanging out with the friends who belonged to our smaller community.
After six years in the minor seminary, I was assigned by the bishop of our diocese to attend a major seminary on the campus of St. Bonaventure University. Again, a larger community not of my choosing. We seminarians lived at the seminary but during our junior year of college we took classes three mornings a week at the University, with other college students.This seminary was a little more open than the minor seminary, especially with our attending classes with the University students. Given the opportunity to interact with these non-seminary students, we established friendships with some of them. So, I was essentially living in two communities - one very structured (the seminary), the other more open (the University).
Just before Thanksgiving of my first year at this new seminary, I realized that I did not want to continue with my seminary studies. I remained in the seminary for the rest of the school year, but applied to the University for admission for my senior year. I had left the very structured setting of the minor seminary community for the structured but more open major seminary community. Now I was about to move into a very unstructured University community. Fortunately, some friends I made at the University during my junior year became my support network as I dealt with this transition. I ate most meals with them in the large University dining hall and spent a lot of time with them when I was not studying. They were a smaller community of people with shared interests who supported me (and hopefully I supported them as well). A few of them I remain in contact with to this day.
One of the things that strikes me about the communities I’ve described here is that we frequently end up in communities that are not of our choosing. But, within those communities, we seek out smaller communities of people with whom we share common interests and who provide us with a support network. i did not choose my elementary school, minor seminary, major seminary or university communities. In each of these situations, I was part of a larger community but also, within that community, was able to join smaller communities of people with whom I shared similar interests. Both the larger and smaller communities provided me with a sense of belonging and a support network, but in different ways. Can you think of larger and smaller communities you’ve been a part of in your life?
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