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    ‘Preface,’ to Foraging for the Spirit in the North Wall Community, ed. Martin Byrne


    Conway, Michael A. (2016) ‘Preface,’ to Foraging for the Spirit in the North Wall Community, ed. Martin Byrne. In: Foraging for the Spirit in the North Wall Community, ed. Martin Byrne. Scribbles from the Margins Press, Dublin, pp. 7-11.

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    Abstract

    A community is known and knows itself by means of a boundary. This boundary is at once a matter of place, personal choice, politics, and even spirit. It is about belonging: you simply know that you belong, and others know that you belong too. Yet, belonging has changed and is changing. In the not too distant past belonging was built on a foundational unity: there was a commonality of place, of social and economic circumstances, of struggles, of aspirations, and, of course, of religious faith. There was, if you like, a form of stability, which, although not always positive, automatically fostered community in that it reflected significant unity: everyone was together in the same boat! This foundational unity that was at the heart of community is, however, no longer to be had. Rather than beginning with such unity, we now begin with diversity. And this can be quite disconcerting, especially when older practices and understandings no longer function for us as they did in former times. Communal life no longer seeks out or rests on uniformity as it might have done, say, some fifty years ago, but calls now for a commitment to something new at the level of building community, of living together, and of inhabiting a common place and time.

    Item Type: Book Section
    Keywords: Preface; Foraging; Spirit; North Wall Community;
    Academic Unit: St Patrick's College, Maynooth > Faculty of Theology
    Item ID: 7806
    Depositing User: Michael A. Conway
    Date Deposited: 23 Jan 2017 17:44
    Publisher: Scribbles from the Margins Press
    Refereed: Yes
    URI:
      Use Licence: This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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