Community (article) by Cliff McDuffie on AuthorsDen

Presented in 2006 as the main speech at Commuity Day of Prayer function in my home town. WHO DO YOU CALL COMMUNITY? First let me define “Community” for you as I see it anyway. Community, from the Latin “communitas” meaning community or fellowship. This is further defined as a city, a district, a group of people living in a smaller social unit within a larger one. These of course include municipalities, religious communities, social communities, ethnic communities, educational communities and the list can get to be very lengthy. Within each of these are dynamics, which create the ebb and flow of energy similar to that of schools of fish. The smaller ones band together for safety and seem to swirl here and there with no real goal where the larger ones such as pods of whales have direction and reason for being together. There is within each community the necessity of leadership to hold that unit together, give it direction to plan and carry out certain strategies in order to preserve the unit, create order and to plan the growth of that community. I have on numerous occasions, when speaking to our youth on their need for continuing education, referred to their brain as like that of a lawn. You must feed, weed and water a lawn in order to keep it from dying. I make the same simile here with communities. I have been interested in reports from either the news or the History channel on TV that is believed that separate “communities” of people existed at the same time in our history. One I will call “Cave Man” or Homo Erectus as it denotes the hairy slightly bent over man with club in hand seeking fresh meat and the other, Neanderthal or Cro Magnon known to us as Homo Sapiens who more resembled the current man of today than the “Cave Man I use these as examples of “communities” that come together for protection and an ease of hunting and gathering. It seems that these two entirely different communities may have existed at the same time some 35,000 to 90,000 years ago. ”. It is also believed that these two very different groups knew of the others existence. Interesting thought is that in Jean Auel’s first book “The Cave Dwellers” she referred to the Homo Sapiens as the “others”. Homo Sapiens , which I read somewhere in preparing this means having opposite thumbs and also being a thinking being, able to analysis and make things. As man evolved over the last 35,000 years he begin to establish communities as we know them today. Some of our cities date back several thousand years. Rome is a good example of both civilization and the need for man to exert power over his neighbors. I believe that the Celts were the only group of people that the Romans were unable to conquer. As rulers of cities began to realize that they needed other communities to help supply food for their growing cities they began to go out and conquer other smaller communities and eventually brought them together as a state or nation in order to protect them from other rulers and to add manpower to their armies. I will add that there also was a matter of greed or ego involved in these decisions. In our own U.S. history, we can go back to the Native Americans for good examples of this. Many Native American tribes banded together and formed nations. This gave them strength in numbers to ward off invading tribes. The chief of one of these nations, Tacumseh, solicited all the other Indian nations to band together and get rid of the white men. He failed but almost succeeded. Can you imagine where we would be today had those other nations listened to him? Then follow our course of history, which takes us to the War of Independence when we decided that we did not like to be ruled and taxed by someone so far away. Sounds familiar doesn’t it. We banded our small 13 colonies together and eventually became a nation. Florida being accepted as a state in the 1800s. I am currently reading “1776” by David McCullough which I highly recommend to you. Zephyrhills, as we well know, was a small cross roads in the late 19th century and was at some time actually a part of Hillsborough County which took in what we now know as about four or five different counties, Hernando, Pasco, Polk, Pinellas and Manatee. Today we also know Zephyrhills as the second largest city in Pasco County. We are but one governmental community and within our community, there are many other “communities”. So when we gather together to pray for our community we can actually reach out and encompass the whole world simply as we are a part of that “community”. Within every community that I can think of, we have differences of opinion as to how that community should operate and of course we all think that our opinion is the best way to go. In order to keep communities from falling apart simply from lack of cohesion and a single thought we have set down rules and regulations called laws by which we conduct ourselves, or at least we are suppose to. We somehow have managed to legislate thousands of laws to define the ten commandants. Interesting!! Every community I know of structured or otherwise has rules to follow, either written or understood by all. Lets identify what communities exist right here right now in this very church. We have Methodist, I list them first because I am one, we have Baptist, Catholic, Presbyterian, Church of God, Adventist, Episcopalians and many others. I would have to stop and ask each of you what your religious preference is in order to name all those who may be with us. Each of you have your own guidelines to follow as to how you celebrate the birth of Christ and how you seek help through, God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Matthew 18:20 says, “For where two or three are gathered together in my name there am I in the midst of them.” Each of your churches is a community within our community. Not only are we of different religions, we are of different ethnic backgrounds. Our ancestors came from all over the world. Today I welcome anyone from another country who has gone through the process of becoming a U. S. citizen and now stands with us. After all we are the melting pot of the world. Each of the schools your children attend or where you may work is a community. There are rules there. Some of these rules in our schools are not strict enough. For instance the dress codes, but that’s another story. Your children’s ball clubs or bands, scouts, even your internet network of friends or anything where more than two gather become communities. Your own family. This is the most important community you will ever be involved in and all to often it is the very one we give the lest attention to. We read of dysfunctional families where children or spouses are abused and trace that back to generations of abuse. If nothing else tonight, when you pray, pray for your family and all families. You have, I am sure, heard of the book “ It Takes a Village to Raise a Child” This may be true but I think it is only partially true as there must first be a sound family and caring parents before the “Village” gets involved. We create communities of people who steal, rob and murder for their own good. They also are to be prayed for. This great nation in it’s early days of formation created our “Declaration of Independence” and also just as important our “Bill of Rights”. Which gives each of us the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and simply states that all men are created equal. As a little bit of history here and as I am of Scottish ancestry our Declaration of Independence was mirrored from a treaty written by a group of Scottish Lords and learned men in 1320, who gathered together in a small town called Arbroath, in northeastern Scotland and wrote the Treaty of Arbroath. This was sent to the Pope telling him to not be involved in the religious doings of Scotland. It very plainly spelled out that and I quote ”….as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we, on any condition, be brought under English domination. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor for honor that we are fighting, but only and alone for freedom, which no good man surrenders but with his life.” I do not personally believe that our constitution forbids us from having religion interspersed in our government. I do not for one minute think that prayers are wrong in school or anywhere else that a public meets. It does, in my opinion , prevent us from having one religion as our national religion. This harkens back to the reign of kings who dictated what religion you would practice or you would be outcast and maybe even be declared a witch and be put to the stake. So here we are in our little community. I am asking that you offer up in your prayers tonight that the Good Lord give those of us in the government here in Zephyrhills the understanding and intelligence to make this city grow into one that has been given forethought and direction to do what is right for the community of Zephyrhills. I also ask that you pray extra hard for those 8, 000 registered voters in our community who year in and year out refuse to go to the polls and vote. We need their input at the polls not just in complaints. We revised our charter this year, which is the rules and regulations I spoke of earlier and only 530 some odd came out and voted to pass it. We need community input and I ask that you pray that we can get that. I may regret that but I honestly ask you for that prayer. Who do you call community? As I was preparing this I started thinking about who my own communities are and would like to share some of those as examples. First of course is my immediate family and my wife’s family. Then there is the extended family of friends . There is the neighborhood I live in. The city I serve as Mayor. The Chamber of Commerce where I spent seven years. My church, of course. Zephyrhills Masonic Lodge 198. The Celtic Festival Board. My own Scottish Clan of Macfie. The Elks and Moose Clubs. My internet connections all over the world. SERTOMA, an organization similar to Rotary and Kiwanis where I served as International Director. My high school class that meets monthly. Do you interact in your community? How do you participate in our community. Do you go to work, come home, watch TV go to bed and repeat the process the next day? If so, get a life! Become involved in your community. It needs you. There are people living in this community who need your help. You don’t have to go to Africa or some far off nation to find needy people. Help your local community! Want some ideas? Try little league. Mentor a student. Read to elementary children. Teach an adult to read. Ask to serve on city or county commissions. Volunteer at The Neighborhood Service Center. Volunteer at the hospital. Deliver meals on wheels. Ask your preacher “who needs help”. It isn’t just money people are looking for. Maybe you can go sit and talk with the senior citizen in a nursing home who just wants someone to talk to. On the 21st of this month, members of my church will go to Mississippi to help rebuild some houses there. In closing, we need to involve in our prayers those who serve this country in harms way. We need to ask the good Lord to open the eyes of those we are fighting against and show them that we are trying to make a better life for them. Not to intern them but give them the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as we know it. God is indeed involved in this process. They believe in God, we believe in God so what’s the problem. The problem is that we do not want the whole world to be one religion. My opinion. Think about who your communities are and give up your prayers for all of us. We are community. We need your prayers. Thank you.

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