Why is community a near-universal experience—especially for people of faith? One person put it this way: "Community is God's strategy for reaching the world." That's a neat way of saying that as community—rather than as individuals—we model what God has in mind for humanity.
The mind thinks of the self as separate, the heart knows better. As one great Indian master, Sri Nisargatta, put it, "The mind creates the abyss, and the heart crosses it."