In lesson #1 we turned community on its head:

Gifts instead of Problems

1. If we see our community as a collection of issues or problems to be solved. . . This is the common and most dominant way of seeing our worlds today.

The solutions are familiar to each of us:
More security
More incarceration
More money
More fences and walls
More social programs

Only, this status quo hasn’t actually worked very well. Part of the story is that when we focus on “a problem” and work “the problem” often we build more of it — the war on drugs, the war on crime, the war on poverty.

If we flip our thinking (requiring our now flexible and reflexive minds) we see community instead of being a collection of problems. . .we see community as being joined by gifts. Interestingly, not one of us mentioned our music abilities, creativity or close relationship to music as a gift. But, when we ask “what can we create3?” It becomes obvious. We are musicians, what can we build with music?

The beauty of seeing life through the eyes of community is the that you see a big web, just as in the very locating exercise we did in our first week of class. Community studies look at all kinds of things that connect us. Take a look at each of these words. Each needs direct reflection and how it intersects or affects your life. Where have you experienced these things?

Now place this phrase in front of each: What is the music of ? We are searching our own experiences now for something deeply suggestive and evocative at the very root of our nature. Their all heralds back in your reading to one fo the first chapters on music and life cycle. But these are not everyone’s big moments, but your own. Yet the experience of having these connecting acts is universal. As is their implications and results.

When I am treated with x I respond with y.

When I am gifted with x I respond with music .

Now you are a community musician.

Each connector deserves study, reflection and practices around them. Practicing any of these as a contemplative practice can constitute a complete practice in itself. Consider how you will contemplate these.

One of the least understood of these connectors is dignity.

What is it in our lives. We seem to know when it is present and we are deepLy affected when our dignity is violated or ignored or abused.

Dignity is an internal state of peace that comes with the recognition and acceptance of the value and vulnerability of all living things. (Hicks, 2011)