PRESIDENT'S CORNER: Can we talk?

The concept of Community has been in my thought for days, so can we talk? What does community mean to you? A town or city, a faith group, a book club, a faculty, co-workers, fellow travelers along life’s great journey? Hey, I like that last one. Community is all these things and I know you can add to the list. So, why have I been thinking of community so much?

With our current health issues, it has come home pretty forcefully, that our community here at OLLI is the one we feel closest to, followed by the medical community that has been responsible for making repairs, and yes, our faith community that has been so supportive.

I wish that I had been introduced to the OLLI community much sooner. I came into teaching for you in 2006, so I’m a relative newbie. It is always fun to speak with some of you “old timers” to hear about life in the A.L.L. days and how this transition to an OLLI evolved. Sure, there has been some disgruntlement about the change, but isn’t that true of all evolution? On balance, from my point-of-view, it’s very clear that this evolution has resulted in a stronger, more diverse and creative organization.

As a community we meet together for classes, for quarterly receptions, the annual meeting, board meetings, etc. We talk, we learn, we plan, we try to make things better, make new friends, create new communities (yes, that’s you, Charleston!), but for me, right now, the best is the bottomless humanity of each one of you that selflessly offers your love, support, hugs, emails, cards, and visits to all of us that need you…and don’t we all know who they are? ALL OF US, that’s who.

“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, No man is an island – A selection from the prose]

“The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers & cities; but to know someone who thinks & feels with us, & who, though distant, is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden.”  [Johann Wolfgang von Goethe]

“Healing is impossible in loneliness; it is the opposite of loneliness. Conviviality is healing. To be healed we must come with all the other creatures to the feast of Creation.”  [Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays]

“We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.” [Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of the Legendary Catholic Social Activist]

Jim Held, President