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By Mercedes Kirkel

Recently a friend contacted me who I hadn’t heard from for a long time. I was shocked and saddened to learn that she’s been diagnosed with cancer and has entered into hospice. Her email was a request for help because she hasn’t been able to work for six months and the bills are piling up. Her desire is to die at home in peace and dignity and she’s humbly turning to friends to ask for any financial assistance they can offer to help her pay her rent and utilities.

I shared my friend’s heart-full communication in my newsletter and was very moved by people’s responsiveness and generosity. Chills ran through my spine as I read the list of people who offered their support, some of whom I knew did not know my friend personally. I felt deeply touched, both by my friend’s vulnerability in asking for help and the loving response I saw from my newsletter “tribe.” I had a sense of being fulfilled relative to my longing for community and caring.

For the majority of my adult life, I’ve lived in some form of intentional community and I very much want that again in my life. One of my early spiritual teachers used to say that community would form around the children. I saw how true that was. As a parent, community wasn’t just a nice idea. The loving support my daughter received from so many other adults in community was a tremendous help to me and benefit to her. I could not have provided that wealth of enrichment, care, and diversity myself.

Now I am seeing the same thing is true for all of us as we age and eventually go through the dying process. This is another time when our need for community becomes more obvious. My father is in an assisted living home now, because his physical needs are beyond what our family can provide. I’ve come to see first hand that besides being enormously expensive to care for someone in this way, it also distances the person from their loved ones. My father’s one continuing wish is that he could be at home with his family.

Yet even in my father’s circumstance, I see how natural it is for us humans to bond in community. I’ve watched my father form relationships with the other people who live there, as virtual strangers gradually become new family for each other. One woman in her 90s, who can’t converse due to being nearly deaf, gives my father her dessert every meal—what a special place she has in his heart! Another man who prefers to be quiet communicates with delightful hand signals to my father. And one woman has adopted me as her sister, always showering me with her blessings from Jesus and God. In fact, they all have become my extended family, as we’ve gotten to know one another from my regular visits. Now I have my own loving and special connection with each of them.

A good friend was recently sharing his desire for community with me. Even though he’s married, he realizes that being in a couple relationship isn’t enough, because at some point one of them is going to die and then the other will be alone. I think this is why there’s such a growing interest in retirement communities. I see this as the growing edge of community in the U.S. right now and a positive step forward from the isolation of living as singles and couples.

But I envision even more, something that’s in many ways similar to how people used to live in extended families, tribes, or small villages. I long to be part of a multigenerational community that includes young and old, with all being enriched by the gifts of each age group—children contributing their life-energy and joy, elders contributing their wisdom and time, mid-aged people contributing their strength and support, and everyone benefiting from the wholeness and continuity of a life that includes the full spectrum of human experience. I can almost taste the security and peace of belonging and being included through all the phases of life. That’s what my heart yearns for.

What about you? I’d love to hear.

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Copyright 2013 Mercedes Kirkel, http://www.mercedeskirkel.com, All Rights Reserved. Please copy and share this article as long as it is shared in its entirety, including this copyright notice, and the information is not altered, excerpted, or added to; credit of authorship and my website address (www.mercedeskirkel.com) is included; and no money is exchanged. For any other uses, please contact Mercedes Kirkel to obtain permission. Thank you.

Mercedes Kirkel is an award winning author and spiritual channel, bringing forth messages and instruction from Mary Magdalene and other Beings of Light, as well as Akashic Record Readings. Her new book, Mary Magdalene Beckons: Join the River of Love is available at www.marymagdalenebeckons.com. All messages and practices are universal and are not affiliated with any religion.

To receive ongoing messages from Mary Magdalene and other Beings of Light through Mercedes, go to www.mercedeskirkel.com and request to be added to the mailing list.

Mercedes offers workshops and private sessions in Santa Fe, New Mexico, including Evolve Life Coaching, Akashic Record Readings, and Guidance from Beings of Light. She is available in-person or long distance (by phone and Skype), or to travel to your location. For more information, go to www.mercedeskirkel.com.