I had an interesting experience last weekend. I was in my bathroom brushing my teeth and I noticed a single medium sized ant walking up the wall beside my mirror. When I stopped to look at it, it stopped walking and looked at me. I was thinking to myself ‘where did this ant come from? where is it going and are there more ants to follow?’ The ant had stopped and lifted one of its legs up- almost like a yoga pose with its antennas quivering. It made me laugh initially but what really struck me about this little interaction that I had with the ant was that it was alone. It almost looked scared and lonely; like it had lost its ant hill.That got me reflecting on this time of year and how important it is to have community around you especially if you are on your own and don’t have a family that is in close proximity to you.
You need to find your own community or even build your own community of like minded souls around you. How do you do that? First of all start with your immediate neighborhood- get to know your neighbors- say hello to them when you go out to start your car if they happen to be outside. Find out about them- what do they enjoy doing with their weekend- do they have a significant other or do they have kids? Start to care about your neighbors by building a relationship with them. I am grateful because my sister invited me over to her annual neighborhood potluck block party. It is a potluck dinner so everyone including myself brought a dish of our choice to share with everyone. What a great way to get to know your neighbors! At the end of the night, I concluded that my sister lives in a warm and welcoming environment of people. We all have interesting people around us- we just have to find out about them and this is a way to open our hearts to others and receive love coming back from them. This honors the spiritual law of brotherhood.
I walk every weekend with one of my neighbor friends. We head out the door at 9 am for a walk. We both get our exercise and we both get a social interaction. One of my other friends in the neighborhood has a potluck brunch that she hosts probably four to six times a year. Another friend hosts A Course in Miracles night from time to time. There is something you can always bring to the table so to speak to build community. I invited an older woman that I see at the bus stop to a Christmas concert that my local church was hosting last weekend. She loved it. I asked her last year as well because I had found out that her husband died and she was missing him.
Another person that I ride the bus with occasionally mentioned a singles group that he attends that meets on Thursday nights and he invited me to come to the group about a month ago. I have been going regularly to this group and I appreciate it. Last week we put together Christmas hampers and delivered them for people that were alone and were in need. It felt great to be in the company of like minded souls. There are plenty of other ideas that I am sure you can come up with to build community. Host a book club or a prayer group, arrange to go snowshoeing with a group of people- open your hearts and minds and seek to build love in your community. Until next time, have a happy holiday with all the people that you love…XO