Contrary to Popular Belief: We are all in this Together

Funny how you ask for transformation and then discover it. The semester is in full swing-- unlike many previous semesters, I have not found the first few weeks of classes greeted by a lull or an anticipation of when the hammer will fall. The hammer fell at 7:40 a.m. last Tuesday when I was ten minutes late for my first class and the pendulum has been swinging ever since. I have wondered multiple times already this week if I will ever catch my breath again.

Despite the constant adrenaline supply I have discovered pumping through my veins for the past seven days, I've begun to sense a few changes in my vision. I am in the process of picking out frames for my new glasses, I think. I wrote a bit about this on Lessons in Freefalling, but I think it applies in other ways here, too.

Community again. It seems as though in the last couple of years as I have plunged into all of these community-questions, I find that every so often my view of what that means gets turned easily and suddenly on its head.

I've been thinking this past week about the issue of community in my classes and what are more aptly becoming my "professional communities." And I've noticed a radical shift in my thinking from isolated contender to team player. I am seeing my classes less as personal breeding grounds for merit-based attention and more as communities of learners-- we are all here to learn. I think it is often our natural tendency (I know it is mine) to compete. I love the concept Don Miller writes about in Searching for God knows What in which an alien comes to visit earth and finds our systems of competition absolutely absurd. "The point is just to see who is better?" the alien asks, bewildered.

The Art community is so often a place of bitter hostility-- the hurting and broken mask their insecurities under pretension and standards of what makes art "fine" and we all fall in line so quickly, don't we? But what if, like Miller suggests, we buck this cycle of self-preservation and begin to root for each other? I mean, doesn't it make sense for everyone to work towards the goal of everyone being the best that we all can be together. Wouldn't I become a better artist and teacher if I was working just as hard at helping my neighbor become a better artist or teacher too? I don't see how we could ever loose if we all decide to walk in the same direction rather than fighting each other?

If we are called to subvert culture, wouldn't it make sense to turn around this system that keeps us in isolation so that we can all discover that we were not made to be alone?