OVERVIEW
There is a power, a resonance when people gather together in community. Here at Cityside we feel the power of that love during our Sunday services and in our classes and small group encounters. Join us as we discuss the power of this love and our proposed Community of Care, which will provide us a way to offer and receive help from our fellow community members. We will also begin the conversation about how we can be available to others who are going through mental health challenges that could include thoughts of suicide, which will be continued after service by the Hope For The Day organization as they present The Things We Don’t Say educational program. We hope to see you for both. “The jewel of community, the Sangha, is to be held equal to the the Buddha and the Dharma. Indeed, the whole of the holy life is fulfilled through spiritual friendship.”
TRANSCRIPTION
So we’re gonna talk about real love this month. It’s based on the book by the same name, by Dr. Greg Bayer. Now others who come after me will speak more specifically on how to create these loving, caring relationships in our lives. My talk today is going to be focused more on the broader, more communal aspects of love. So to start, let me know if this quote I’m going to read you by Star Hawk describes Cityside for you community. Somewhere there are people to whom we can speak with passion without the words catching in our throats. Somewhere a circle of hands will open to receive us. Eyes will light up as we enter. Voices will celebrate whenever we come into our own power. Community means strength to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold us when we falter, a circle of healing, a circle of friends, someplace where we can be free. There are heads nodding in the room, maybe even some misty eyes. I know this is what cityside means to me.
Many of us are fortunate to have more than one of these communities. It can be our family, our friends, our neighbors. Perhaps. Now imagine that you do not have a community like this, or if you have a community that could support you, you feel estranged from it. You feel despondent and despairing whether these sports are available to you or not. After service today, we will have presenters from Hope for the Day, which is a non-profit organization that is furthering and empowering the conversation on suicide prevention and mental health education. And so they’re going to be here to help us to understand the, the impact of the stigma of suicide on individuals and families and communities. And they will also teach us practical skills for the early recognition of mental health challenges that often go undetected until it reaches a crisis stage of suicide. I’m going to anticipate a thought that maybe some of you might be having at this point. Maybe you think that this is a topic or a conversation that’s best left to therapists or counselors, uh, to ministers or to other professionals. And I wanna assure you that it is not, this is a conversation we all need to learn to have because you never know when it is could touch your life.
It has touched my life several times, and I’m not even talking about as my work as a therapist here. There is a pain in my heart to this day, to this to this day. There is a pain in my heart that’s like no other, around the death of a friend of mine by suicide
And the pain that I carry for someone that I love. So very, very dear that I, words cannot express how much I love him. That came so very close. It has impacted my extended family. I do not wish this pain on anyone, even if it doesn’t touch your family or loved ones directly. You could be the person that literally saves someone’s life by having this conversation or providing these resources. You know, now I don’t, it’s not a guarantee. I don’t want to put that burden on anyone. There are people who will take their own lives despite others’ best efforts to reach them. And, and when we can make this topic, this conversation less scary, less fraught for ourselves, we communicate an openness, a willingness and availability to people going through these kinds of challenges that allows them to have these conversations with us. And this can be the catalyst for someone to get the help that they need. Wouldn’t you wanna be the person who could do that for another? So I hope that you will stay after service for this important conversation. Um, if you haven’t planned to do so already. And we also will have people in the lobby to sign you up if you haven’t registered already, and to take your love offering for the program.
The conversation will, we will be having after service today is an example of how we can be an open loving presence in the many different circles or communities in which we live our lives. And of course, there are many ways to be of service in the world. And I, I hope that as a spiritual community, we take service as a spiritual principle to heart and help others and give to others in some way. And as the starhawk quote so beautifully illustrates, we have a spiritual community here at Cityside that so many of us cherish and value for the friendship and the support and the guidance that we get here in Buddhism. It is said that the jewel of community, the songa is de is to be held equal to the Buddha and the Dharma, indeed the whole of the holy life is fulfilled through spiritual friendship.
We are a loving, caring community that really enjoys getting together each Sunday. You know, we have the meet and greet portion of our service, which is a highlight for many of us. And as an occasional host, I can speak to the difficulty of trying to get you all back in your seats on time. It’s a little bit like herding cats. Um, I’m just saying like any, there are times, however, when members of the Cityside family are in need of some sort of help. Perhaps someone needs a ride to service, help with grocery shopping, maybe to be a ride or a support person, to a medical appointment or procedure. You know, not everyone has family or friends available to them to help them with these types of needs. We are proposing here at cityside, what we are calling a community of care comprised of members of our cityside community who choose to participate by being part of this community of care.
You agree to price fried services to your fellow community members who, you know, have a need that, that you could fulfill. Signing up to be a part of the community of care doesn’t commit you to anything. It just says that you are willing to help out when you are available. If someone has a need that you can meet, you know, we’re still figuring out how we match the people who have the need to the people who can provide it. Um, we’ll, more information on that will come out in the, in the coming weeks to begin with, we are asking that people who are wanting to serve their cityside family in this way, that you sign up on a form that is out in the lobby and you can do that after service. It’s designed in a way so that indicates, you know, what part of the city or the suburbs that you live, the north side, the south side, west side, northwest suburbs, southwest suburbs, that kind of thing.
So we can more readily match the people who have the need with, um, those who can, who can meet it, that are in their general area, hopefully. So I would love to see this form filled with names today. Again, being part of the community of care doesn’t commit you to anything. Not a certain number of hours. You’re not on call or anything like that. You simply are stating your willingness and availability to help out if you can. Simple, easy, loving, you know, for people who are joining us online today, and for those in the room who wanna do this later, there will be a form online where you can fill out to become a part of the community of care. You know, I’ve wondered with the creation of the Cityside community of care, whether it would be harder to get people to say, yes, I’m available to help, or to get people to say, Hey, I need some help.
So I encourage anyone who has a need that they cannot meet on their own or would simply like some support, some support with a challenge that they are facing to reach out through this, through this program to your fellow community members. And just to be clear, so for anybody providing the help or those receiving it, it’s not like a cash assistance, um, thing or anything like that. It’s just concrete help with things like rides or helping with, you know, simple tasks. You know, we’re, I know that this happens already informally, you know, people give each other rides. We’re just trying to maybe formalize it a little bit and create a network where we take care of each other and walk with each other. You know, when the road gets a little difficult or the hill a little too steep to climb on our own, this is a new endeavor for us and they’re, they’re going to be bugs to work out. But I’m excited to see this community of care get launched and to grow. So thank you to all who choose to partici to participate.
As I was thinking about what love looks like in community, I began to think about Greek philosophy. You know, in Greek philosophy they have seven, seven words for, for love. You know, in English we only have one, right? We have the same word for romantic love, parental love, brotherly love, love of our fellow man, love of God. It’s all the same word. You know, we say we, we love that movie or we love this or that particular type of food. We say how we love going to the beach. I love going to the beach by the way. It’s all the same word. The love we’ve been talking about here so far has been focused mostly on felia. The Greek word for affectionate friendly love. This is a type of, of found in friendship and caring for others that’s in a way that has what’s only best for them at heart.
We’ve also touched on the selfless universal love that the Greeks call agape. These are powerful forms of love. And even though my talk is not focused on romantic relationships, if your relationship has at its core the Ophelia type of love based in friendship and true concern for the other, and the selfless love of, of agape love, and I’m, I’m not talking about a selflessness that has no boundaries or that has no love for self, but the selflessness that can see past one’s own needs, maybe even one’s own hurt to see the true self, the higher self, the Buddha nature, if you will, of your partner, then that relationship is set on a solid foundation. Indeed, love openhearted compassion that is based in the welfare of others is not for the faint of heart, especially in the world in which we live. You know, it is, um, it can be hard to keep our, our hearts open enough.
It can be a challenge to do this, you know, whether it’s a friend or a family member who seems to have more needs than you can possibly meet, or you look around at the world and you think, oh my God, look what’s happening with all this pain and suffering that I see. Well, how, what can I possibly do about that? It can be easy to shrink back from the task to retreat in the impossibility of it all. I know that for me, I can barely read or hear or watch the news reports about all the damage that’s being done to our mother, the earth and all that needs to be done in order to help or to heal.
It reminds me of the words of the Talmud that exhort us not to be daunted by the world’s grief. It tells us that we are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are we free to abandon it. I wanna offer a story here, and it’s one I’ve shared before, but it is powerful and speaks really to um, how we sh how we can show up as a presence of love and compassion in the world. So one day there was a man walking along the beach by the ocean after a, a big storm and there were hundreds, if not thousands of starfish stranded on the beach that were surely to die before the next tide could take them back out to sea. So the man’s walking along and he sees this and he thinks to himself, oh, this is so sad. All of these starfish are going to die.
And he keeps walking along, turns the bend, you know, uh, in the beach and there’s a man further up picking up a starfish one at a time and putting them back in the ocean. He walks up to the man and asks incredulously, you know, excuse me, but, but, but what are you doing? You can’t possibly help all of these starfish, you know, don’t you realize that what you are doing isn’t going to make a difference? The man bends down, picks up another starfish, puts it in the ocean and said, made a difference to that one.
You know, it’s, there are so many starfish in the world. It’s true, and we cannot help them all, but we can help the person that’s right in front of us. You know, we can be the person that can have these conversations with people who are facing mental health challenges. We can be the person who’s brave enough to say to someone, are you feeling so bad that you are thinking of suicide? How many people have utter a sentence like that in your life? A couple of people. So good for you. And if you, if others of you have not, hopefully it’s because it hasn’t been necessary.
But these are diffic difficult conversations. I know the words can stick in your throat, which is why we need to, is why we need to learn how to have them. And I’ll tell you what, often we do not have to say the words. The words get spoken to us because we have made ourselves available. We have communicated our willingness and our openness to having the conversation so someone is safe enough to say it to us, knowing that we won’t freak out and shut the conversation down. And of course, so often the way we can help are in ways so less dire than someone who’s thinking of suicide right now as we’re talking about in our community of care here we can help simply by offering a ride or helping someone out with a task.
I titled my talk the Power of love in community. And quite frankly, I was a little challenged to find quotes or stories or teachings even about what I was talking about, what I was really thinking about. You know, I want to communicate how powerful the connections can be in community and how impactful love shared in community is, but how to demonstrate that. Well, so I started to think about my days, um, when I used to play the cello. This was not recently at all decades ago, but I remembered this idea of resonance. Now when I would play the, the G note on the D-ring of a cello, the G-string, which sets night right next to it, would resonate all on its own. I think that is so cool. And it’s exactly what I was thinking about. This is the concept I was trying to express about what happens in community. You know, when we gather together, whatever brings us together, maybe we gather as a group of like-minded people, not necessarily people who look like us or maybe it’s just a group of people that like us. Whatever it is that brings us into community, there is a resonance between us. It is a vibration, a vibration of friendship, of care, of love. It’s a vibration that says, I see you, I know you, I recognize you. That is the power of love in community.
Now many people do the emotional, spiritual, mental work to raise their, their consciousness and to vibrate at a higher level. And it’s wonderful and it helps people in a positive way, no doubt. And when we vibrate with each other in community, when we have that resonance with each other, wow, that is powerful alchemy. That is all of that vibration magnified many times over. When your consciousness, your love, your presence, your talents blending with mine and hers and his and theirs, that is the power of love in community. To demonstrate this, I’m going to ask the music team to come back up here to assist me with this. I invite you now to relax and get settled comfortably in your chair. You can close your eyes or have a soft gaze or whatever works for you. I invite the people at home to do this as well as Nora begins to play that single G note, begin to allow yourself into a place of deepening awareness as she plays this note for another moment or two. Now, Paige is going to sing that same note as Nora continues to play it on her viola. And now Greg wa his G note to Nora and Paige’s,
As we still ourselves to the beautiful sound of this note from these three different sources, I now invite you to begin to hum that G note along with them matching their note as best as you can. Begin to hum along as loudly or as softly as you want. Notice the vibration within you as you hum along. Notice how you can actually feel your body vibrate to this one note. As you tune into your vibration, tune into the vibrations of the people next to you, those in front of you and behind you. Tune into the vibrations from all those gathered in the room. I hope that people online are doing this as well. Let this vibration fill you. Fill your space. Imagine that vibration extending beyond the walls of your space. To join us here, let us all feel the resonance. This is your community, this is your tribe. And if you are visiting here today and not a member of Cityside, this is still your tribe. For we are birthed into sangas as a Shanti into sacred community. It is called the world. As we continue in this vibration, feel free to continue to hum along as we conclude in prayer,
Continuing to feel this vibration, this vibration of love, this vibration of peace, this vibration of connection, of joy. This is a vibration that I call God. And we know it can go by any name. It’s probably best name is love this, love this love that you are feeling in throughout your bodies, in throughout your minds, in your heart. This love connects us all to spirit, to source to each other. We are one with this vibration, one with this love. And so I know now in this moment, we connect to it, we align with it. We deepen into this vibration of love,
Letting it reach out to our fellow community members, to those in our lives, perhaps to people who suffer in some way mentally, who, who may be thinking of something as dire as suicide. That our connection, our love, our vibration, allows us to have these conversations with one another, to reach out and to help one another in times of need in big ways and in small. This love, this grace, this joy, this peace is here now is in us always and available. And I know that as a Cityside community, we continue to deepen into that vibration, continue to reach out to one another through the community of care. And in all the ways that we show up as a, as a community for one another. I know this vibration is here for us. Is us, is the love that we seek. I know it is healing. I know it is powerful. I know it is here and always and everywhere present, I give so much gratitude for this vibration, for this community of love called Cityside. I simply release this prayer into the action of that vibration, of that love. I call it good. And together we say. And so it is.