What is your first memory or most meaningful experience of community?

Paul Born posed this question at Deepening Community Edmonton and the memory that popped into my head was unexpected and made perfect sense. 

I mentioned yesterday that my Grandparents had a cabin that we frequented on the weekend.   At this cabin we knew pretty much everyone on the street. We didn't even have a landline and would have to ask our neighbour to use their phone. 

There was one neighbour who we visited every weekend we went there. My Grandfather would bring my sister and I to chat with him and play in the garden while he visited and we always delivered a plate of Sunday dinner. I thought this neighbour's house and property were fascinating as a child. There was a cow and a garden and he let us play wherever we wanted, including in some of the high grass on the property. My Grandfather shared a joyful fellowship with him and my sister and I would always want to come along for these visits. 

Later in life when I drove by this place or I asked my family for updates on this gentlemen, I realized and was told that this neighbour had some struggles in his life and we were one of his few visitors. As a child, I had no idea. Not because I was young, as children pick-up on all sorts of things whether they realize it or not. It was because my Grandfather treated this man the same as anyone else we visited. He was a neighbour that we spent time with. Not out of pity or to fix anything about him, just to be together and enjoy one another's company. 

These are my first and most meaningful memories of community. Living that golden rule of doing unto others as you would want done unto you. Treating everyone equally and defining them by their humanity not a label or deficiency. This is just one example that I can remember and I know there are countless more that I was not a participant in.

It's a mindset I've been working to get back to. As I grew older and had more external influences, I fell into the trap of viewing people as their glass-half-full selves or defining them by a label we/society may have put on them. This kind of unconditional love and caring is what community is all about for me. It is the way I've seen deep community built and the thing that fills me up when I'm a part of it.