"We know the rules of community;
we know the healing effect of community in terms of individual lives. If we could somehow
find a way across the bridge of our knowledge, would not these same rules have a healing
effect upon our world? We human beings have often been referred to as social animals. But
we are not yet community creatures. We are impelled to relate with each other for our
survival. But we do not yet relate with the inclusivity, realism, self-awareness,
vulnerability, commitment, openness, freedom, equality, and love of genuine community. It
is clearly no longer enough to be simply social animals, babbling together at cocktail
parties and brawling with each other in business and over boundaries. It is our task--our
essential, central, crucial task--to transform ourselves from mere social creatures into
community creatures. It is the only way that human evolution will be able to
proceed."
Scott M. Peck-The Different Drum: Community-Making and Peace

"A spider's web is stronger than it looks. Although it is made
of thin, delicate strands, the web is not easily broken. However, a web gets torn every
day by the insects that kick around in it, and a spider must rebuild it when it gets full
of holes...."
E.B. White, Charlotte's Web

"To grapple with the forces that undermine our family, we need
new ways of thinking. We must pay attention to interdependence, trust and mutual
responsibility. We must get beyond the language of individualism. We must seek the common
good together. We have a need for trust and sustenance."
Richard Madsen, UCSD - La Jolla, 1996; Also, Robert
Bellah, Richard Madsen, et al., Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in
American Life. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985.

"Many of us believe that when some people are excluded from the
social fabric
of our communities, that fabric contains a hole. When the fabric contains a hole, the
entire fabric is weakened. It lacks the richness, texture and strength of diversity."
Author Unknown

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every
man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be
washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a
promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine
own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in
mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells
tolls; it tolls for thee."
John Donne,
Mediation XVII
