What’s that noise,” I asked Del. It was a low hum I hadn’t heard before. It sounded as if it was coming from the basement. We conjectured up a few possibilities, but none seemed right.
We sat quietly, drinking our morning beverages, thinking and listening. Finally, Del asked, “Is it the fan?”
We always have a ceiling fan running in order to move the warm air from the fireplace down, but previously it never made any noise. However, the day before I had cleaned it, and not turned it on its regular speed.
Yes, that was the answer. The new speed did make a hum. So although we thought the noise was from the basement, it was actually immediately above our head, right in plain sight.
Such a perfect symbol of how we usually look for answers in all the wrong places. Instead, they sit in plain sight just waiting for us to pause and listen in order to see them.
Isn’t this what happens on the yellow brick road in the story The Wizard of Oz?
Dorothy heads off to seek an adventure, because she is not happy at home. Along the way, she meets the cowardly lion, the scarecrow, and the tin man. Dorothy is looking for home, the lion for courage, the scarecrow for a brain, and the tin man for a heart.
We know that what they discover is they all had what they wanted all along; they just had to discover it for themselves.
Would they have discovered what was hidden in plain sight, if they weren’t walking the yellow brick road together?
This little band of adventurers, off to seek answers, represent community. Community; as in people who are traveling on the same road, going in the same direction, and with the same desired outcome.
I first discovered the joy of community when, a few lifetimes ago, I founded a small dance company.
As a little band of dancers traveling on the yellow brick road together, we discovered our own gifts, along with each other’s gifts. We also discovered, as did The Wizard of Oz adventurers, that it was an advantage to all of us if we used our own unique spiritual blessing to the fullest.
Like them, we offered protection and encouragement to each other. We all became better dancers, or in my case, a better choreographer, because we walked that road together.
Community is something for which everyone yearns. Sometimes we try to make a community out of people who are either not traveling the same road, or not going in the same direction, or who do not have the same desired outcome.