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                                  %SECURE COMMUNITY 880212

     Members  of  a secure community are secure  in  their
mutual acceptance of others within  the community.   Their
security is grounded in  their mutual gifts of the freedom
to  be  vulnerable within the community  of acceptance-of-
each-other  in  authentic  personal   relationships  which
free  of mutual deception.

     Members   of  a  secure  community  are  not  on  the
defensive  towards each other;  they feel no need to be on
the defensive, because they know who they are in terms  of
the  security which the integrity of the community  offers
as a free gift to all who will accept it.

     A  secure  community does not achieve its security by
defending  itself against external  threats.    A   secure
community   creates  within  itself  the  freedom  to   be
vulnerable;   the  freedom  not to be  on  the  defensive.
Security is a gift of the members of the community created
by the mutual   acceptance   of  each  other in  authentic
personal relationships.

     The threat to the security of a community resides  in
the  temptation  to  make  membership  in  the   community
conditional   upon  some  kind  of  conformity  which   is
insensitive  to the personal integrity of a  person  whose
membership is questioned.   If membership in the community
is in doubt,  the members of the community  feel the  need
to  be   on  the  defensive  about  their   qualifications
for membership.     To defend one's own qualifications one
must  call  into  question  other's  qualification.    The
questioning  of  qualifications for membership  undermines
the  freedom to be  vulnerable;   i.e.,   it destroys  the
security which the community might offer.

                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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