The idea of community has many elements and communities are expressed in many ways.  There are communities of the heart, the mind, the spirit, the professions, of play, of geography, of every kind of drawing together that human beings can imagine.

 

The concept of community implies a common interest.  It has no other element to bind fragments together.  This common interest may be any of the objectives mentioned.  Consider the community that forms when people live at a certain place on the earth's surface.  This place is known among you as your address.  Those who share this space on either side, on adjacent paths within the extension of the space, are said to be of one community.  This application of the word 'community' is easily understood.  Nothing else may be shared beyond the geographical location; nothing emotional or professional or spiritual need be involved, just place.  Certainly a community, however. 

 

Now, within that geographical space two or more members may find an affinity of interest beyond surface considerations such as leaf collection, taxation, and noise levels.  They may discover that they share an interest in sports.  This interest may take the form of belonging to groups who also share this interest.  This then becomes another kind of 'community' for those so inclined, based on their common attraction to sports, either watching others actually involved in activities or participating in them themselves.

 

Take the community of the spirit.  This is what you who call yourselves Michael Students belong to.  You share a common interest in the teachings that we bring and you have, by virtue of that interest, a commonality of purpose.  Even the designation 'International Community' is one of spirit.  It has no physical expression at all, but is only a vision of purpose, not necessarily agreed upon but nonetheless shared.

 

A community of the heart means the sharing of an emotional state.  When two or more fragments are drawn together in affection this also constitutes a community of a kind.  The affection may begin with sexual attraction and move into a more profound place of body/mind/spirit blending.  Or the affection may be one of attraction without sexual overtones and is then known as friendship.  The human family is another heart-based community, but can also mean those who come together to live as family without the element of kinship.  All of these heart-bonded communities are based on  common purpose or interest, even though the emotional element implies something less remote, something more personal.

 

The community of profession is a common interest in a particular way of earning a living.  It is usual to speak of 'the scientific community', or 'the medical community'.  The members of this kind of community may not even be in the same geographical space, may not ever have met each other, may not even like each other.  They use their affiliation to their profession to create a sense of belonging to something larger than themselves but with a shared purpose.

 

We will not enumerate all the possible ways that community can be thought of, but we present these examples to assist in the understanding that 'community' is not just or only an emotional tie that requires bonding from the heart.  This is only one kind of community.

 

Having said this, we suggest that broadening your appreciation for what community can be will open up a better understanding of how fragments experience it.  Some fragments are of a 'professional' mind.  That is, they share an interest in a particular aspect of a particular group, but are drawn to the subject matter, not especially to the humans involved.  This can happen even in a family 'community'. 

 

You have all known, if not experienced, the situation where one or more members of a family seem outside the pale, so to speak, are unattached to the rest.  The 'stuff' of the family for a fragment so situated is far less important than it is to others who perceive the community of the family as one of affection, which is to say emotion, or of reason, which is to say a genetic connection expressed by acceptance into the lineage provided.  Nevertheless, the odd-man-out members are still of the family community by virtue of their choice to be born into it.

 

We bring these thoughts to your attention so that you may consider the ramifications of the 'communities' which you have joined or will join.  Not all of them are going to be emotional attachments, only some will have rational components, a few will draw for their spiritual content, and even fewer will be heart-felt, that is, centered on agape.

 

Each of you will choose many 'communities' for the specific return they offer.  Each of you has already joined a number of communities, either deliberately or inadvertently, not the least of which may be the so-called Michael Community.   Keep in mind, however, that the range of possible understandings regarding what membership implies or requires, even within our little Michael Community, is vast, encompassing the whole of the membership.  Therefore, acceptance of this range of understanding may seriously color how each of you perceives the rest of you and how much diversity permeates this understanding. 

 

The framework of the roles/overleaves may be applied here.  The discrete shaping of each of you that takes place on the physical plane because of the choices you have made regarding not only the overleaves but also of genetic, social, geographical, and other factors contributing to your existence on the physical plane, means that when you speak of 'community' as applied to this or any group, you may find that your understanding is too limited.  You look for a mirror instead of a window.

 

When you focus on only one aspect of all the possibilities contained in the label 'community', the one mind/one heart aspect, for instance, you end up with a much greater mutilation than that which the occupant of the Procrustean bed endured.  Be aware of which kind of 'community' you are dealing with each time, and adjust appropriately your expectations of yourself and of others who share in that community.  This approach will tend to alter your understanding very much for the better and allow much more tolerance of any purely human involvement than you might have if your vision is too narrow for the circumstances.  Go in peace.