5 What Is Community

What Is Community?

什么是社区

Communities are natural human associations based on ties of rela tionship and shared experiences in which we mutually meaning in our l ives, meet needs, and accomplish the persons we were meant to become, discover meaning, generate ethical values, and develop a culture a c ulture which would be impossible for single, isolated individuals to accomplish alone.社区是基于各种相互联系和共同经历而形成的自然的人类组织.在社区里,我们的生活互相影响,包括如何满足需要,如何成为我们理想中的人,意义的发现,伦理价值的产生,以及开创一种文化.这种文化对于单独的,孤立的个体来说是不可能创造的.

When we talk about community, we talk about two things simultane ously. Community is located in space and time and it exists beyond sp ace and time. Community is embodied in a space, structure, and presen ce, but community transcends location; it cannot confined by structur e or mere history.当我们谈论社区时，我们同时谈论两个方面。社区处于时空中,但它能超越时空而存在。社区体现为一定的空间,结构和现在，但它又超越了地点,并且不可能被仅仅局限于某种结构或历史。

Embodied Community社区的具体性

Every one of us needs community. Community arises spontaneously because of an innate sociality of the human condition. With relativel y rare exceptions community has been the form of human associated lif e by which people have related throughout history. Your self cannot, in fact, reach its full realization in isolation, but only as you are nurtured, guided, and suffused with life of the community in which y ou exist.我们每一个人都需要社区。由于人类所固有的社会性，社区就自然的产生了。除了相对罕见的特例,社区是与人类有关的生活方式,通过这种方式人们才在历史中互相有了联系。事实上,光靠你自己孤立的力量不可能实现自我的充分发展，只有当你在所生存的社区中被培养，教导，充分融入生活才能做到这一点。

Localized community needs to be embodied to have existence. In i ts purest sense, community is an arena of social interaction, a milie u of social relationships in which we engage one another at a time an d in a place where we gather together. For many communities to have p ermanence, they often become identified with physical space that the community claims as its own. This could be a territory or a neighborh ood that we identify with a name and includes homes, schools, and sho ps. Communities such as a local church, neighborhood, or ethnic or ci vil association often develop a structure or a form of association, i nfuse it with values, and derive meaning form it. The location or the structure becomes the embodiment of and symbolizes community. Thus i t is appropriate to talk about community as a neighborhood or associa

tion that exists in space and time, that has permanence and structure.区域化的社区需要被实现才能存在。在最基本的定义里，社区是社会交际的舞台，是我们在某时或聚集在某地而形成的各种社会关系的环境.对许多能够持久的社区来说，它们通常因为拥有自己的地理范围而被人们所确认.这个地理范围可以是国家的领土,也可以是包括家庭、学校和商店的有自己名称的居民区. 诸如地方教会、居民区以及种族或市民协会的这样一个社区,经常会形成一个有着自己的价值观及相关意义系统的社区结构.社区就是通过所划分的地理范围的和所形成的社区结构来具体得到实现的.因此,把社区作为某居民区或协会来谈论是适当的,因为它们有固定结构和永久性,在时空中具体存在.

Transcendent Community社区的超越性

Although a community can be found in a locality or be embodied b y a structural form, community is never simple a static physical loca tion that we inhabit, as social ecologists assert; nor is it merely a structure or mechanical process, as systems theorists suggest. Commu nity is the act by which we engage one another, experience relationsh ips, and become a people. Wherever humans exist, we spontaneously see k and form community.虽然社区有一定地理范围或结构形式，但社区决不仅仅象社会生态学家所断言的那样,"是一个我们所居住的静止不变的地理区域"，也不仅仅是系统理论家所提出的"一个结构或机械的过程".社区是一种行为,通过这个行为我们互相交往，体验关系，并且成为一个民族。只要是有人类存在的地方，我们就会自发地寻找并形成社区。

Communities are an indelible component of the human condition, n ot relative to a particular historical era, place, or time. Neither a re communities unique to one race, national, or cultural group. Commu nity transcends history and cannot be contained by mere history. Deep ly tooted in our nature, community may be said to be a universal huma n phenomenon, not contingent on circumstances.社区是人类环境的一个不可或缺的组成部分.它并不是相对于特定的历史时代、地点或时间来说的,也不是专属于某一种族、民族或者文化组织的。社区超越历史，并且不可能仅仅被历史所包含。由于人类的天性使然,，社区可以说是一种人类的普遍现象，并非伴随某条件发生的偶然现象。

Community transcends location. As people in community move from place to place, we carry our community with us. When the nation of Is rael was destroyed and most of her people were exiled to Babylon in 5 97 B.C. , they lost their land, but they never lost themselves, their community. They were then, and 2600 years later remain a people, a c ommunity, regardless of where they are located.社区超越地点。当社区内的人们迁移时,社区也随之迁移。公元前597年,当以色列人的国家被摧毁，并且大多数人被放逐到巴比伦时,他们丧失了他们的土地，但他们未曾丧失自己以及他们的社区。不管他们生存在哪里.他们那时是,并且2600年后依然是一个民族和社区.

Community transcends its structure. The original group that call ed themselves “people of the Way” was a small association whose mem

bers met in the Temple as Jerusalem, in one another’s homes, and who owned everything in common. Christian churches today are far differen t from those original communities in the way they are structures and governed, and in the manner and language in which worship is conducte d. Yet they remain communities untied in a common belief and heritage.社区超越它的结构。最初,一个自称为“路上的人们”的小组是一个很小的协会,这个协会的成员共享一切,在耶路撒冷的圣殿或彼此的家里祭拜上帝. 现在的基督教会在结构和管理上以及祭拜的方式和语言上，与那些原始的社区远远不同。然而，他们仍然是同一个有着相同信仰和传统的松散的社区。

Community transcends time, a community exists before we were bor n and will live on after we die. We develop a shared memory and obtai n a sense of ourselves by means of our common history together. The s ymbols and meaning that community incorporates, while origination in time, become timeless.社区超越时间。一个社区在我们出生前就存在，并且会延续到我们死去之后。我们通过共同的历史来形成共同的记忆以及自我意识。社区所包含的象征和意义，虽然起源于时间，但会变得永恒。

There is not just one model of community or one community ideal. Each community is a unique blending of the people of which it is com posed. The many good communities that come into being add to the shap e and texture of human existence. The more communities that develop, therefore, the more opportunities for us to explore alternative ways of being in the world, and different ways of achieving richness of ch aracter.社区并非只有一个模式，也不存在某一理想的社区模式。每个社区都是其组成人民的独特的联合。许多成立的好社区丰富了人类存在的形式和结构。因此，建立越多社区，我们就会有更多机会来探索在世上生存的可能方式，同时也能探索使自己个性丰满的不同方式。