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

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