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Quaker Culture: Authentic Community

Author(s):
Parker Palmer
Issue:
On Cliques (September 2021)
Department:
Quaker Culture

In a true community we will not choose our companions, for our choices are so often limited by self-serving motives. Instead, our companions will be given to us by grace. Often, they will be persons who will upset our settled view of self and world. In fact, we might define true community as the place where the person you least want to live with lives!

          – Parker Palmer (1980)

community interpersonal tension

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