Coming together in Poverty (On Community)

A couple sentences in yesterday's email from the Henri Nouwen society struck me, and I thought I'd share. Actually, on second thought, after re-reading, I'll share the whole thing, because it's all good stuff, and just put the sentences that really struck me in italics.

Coming Together in Poverty

There are many forms of poverty: economic poverty, physical poverty, emotional poverty, mental poverty, and spiritual poverty. As long as we relate primarily to each other's wealth, health, stability, intelligence, and soul strength, we cannot develop true community. Community is not a talent show in which we dazzle the world with our combined gifts. Community is the place where our poverty is acknowledged and accepted, not as something we have to learn to cope with as best as we can but as a true source of new life.

Living community in whatever form - family, parish, twelve-step program, or intentional community - challenges us to come together at the place of our poverty, believing that there we can reveal our richness.