Let me just preface this by saying that I would personally rename this "center" as being humanity-centric, rather than "community" centric.... A humanity-centered Paganism incorporates a connection with spirit through our human-ness, which makes room for certain level of humanism (religious or not), kinship (whether kin-by-blood or kin-by-choice) as a type of spiritual bond, and will likely include ancestor veneration, as well as the idea of humanity itself (or aspects of humanity) as an active, even deified, force working in the Cosmos (in the same manner as nature spirits).

Ancestor Veneration

Personally, I choose to honor non-biological ancestors as part of my tradition, but I don't practice a traditional veneration of my biological ancestors. So, rather than explain something I don't do, I'll share some words and wisdom from a couple of folks that do practice ancestor veneration (and you might notice that, while similar, they offer some very different persectives.

The first thing to consider is that not all ancestors are blood relatives:

It's not all that unusual to have unrelated "ancestors" become part of your ancestral house. Some indigenous traditions actually have specific names for the various types of ancestors: blood vs. affinity. Besides, friends, teachers, and mentors who have died can and should also be honored as respected ancestors. I don't think that one is more important than the other. If we go far enough back, we all share common ancestry and I think it's good and proper to honor them all, regardless of whether the association is one of blood, adoption, or affinity.
~Galina Krasskova writing @ Patheos in 2011

John Beckett (blogger @ Patheos), in a post entitiled "Who are our ancestors?" breaks down ancestors into 4 groups--the ones we know (in our lineage), the ones we don't (in our lineage), ancestors "of spirit" (teachers, neighbors, mentors, civil leaders, etc), and our "ancestors most ancient" (from our human ancestors on back down the evolutionary line). I like this, in that is acknowleges that kinship is complicated and that it involves more than genetics and more than just humans.

Galina Krasskova also acknowleges other-than-human ancestors of a different sort--the gods themselves, the elements, etc. When you look at ancestry in this way, well then, yeah, I venerate my ancestors...but in my experience, most people aren't venerating Water as an ancestor. But...when you look at what people are actually doing on a routine basis, ancestor veneration is mostly about hominids, and usually ones we are related to or consider close to us in some way.

One theme that emerges from some people practicing ancestor veneration is that it restores a pre-Christian mindset. Some more extreme views here (as mentioned in the elsewhere blog post I previously quoted by Galina Krasskova), considers those ancestors that converted (and lets be honest, it was probably forcefully) to Christianity to be a sort of traitor, and not worthy of worship until they renounce their choice (which sounds oh-so-Christian to me...hey, lets engage in this spiritual shunning because you didn't do what I think is right). Others (like John Beckett, above) are quite reasonable, and perhaps admirable. But I personally think that this view depends too much on fallacy of antiquity--its right because its old and we were doing it longer as a species (maybe that's also part of my person hang-up on ancestor veneration).

People are animals like any other species, and the religions that developled in antiquity are as much a byproduct of biological and cultural evolution as any other adaptative technology (like clothing) as it is part of the *something else* that separates us from other animals. Ancestor veneration, I think, is borne from our ability to contemplate our death and our fear of the unknown after. I personally think that we should be looking at our ancestors as lessons as *what not to do* as we do inspiration for *what we should do*. In this same vein, many of us will have issues to address when it comes to "Honoring our Toublesome Ancestors", a wonderfully thoughtful blog post by John Beckett. (Hey, just because I don't do something doesn't mean I can't appreciate someone else's views!)

Venerating Humanity

On Memorial Day, our family holds a ritual of acknowlegement and thanks to the men and women that have died of war. On Samhain we honor those that we loved and have lost--relations, friends, and personally influential individuals to us. On Darwin Day, we celebrate the tool of inquiry known as science that offers another layer by which to encounter and interact with the world, a tool that has (thanks to Mr. Darwin) given us great insight into our place in the Tree of Life. On "Columbus Day" we hold a mirror to the great injustices perpetrated by Columbus and the genocide that followed, one of our great sins of our modern history. On Martin Luther King Day, we do the same for the second (in terms of commencement, not in terms of magnitude or importance) of our great sins of modern history. There are others--for example we celebrate Demokratia (aka Libertas)--a deity that exists from a human ideal, on the 4th of July. Additionally, I regularly remember a number persons from Ben Franklin to Wangari Maathai and dedicate certain activites to their memory.

After all, the greatest mystery of life is what happens when we die. The only sure bet for the parts of us that remain are the memories we leave behind, the actions we inspire in others, the stories that are passed on, and the material legacy that we can't take with us. I know that elephants mourn their dead, and that other animals show signs of stress and perhaps even grief when offspring die, but as far as I know, we are the only species that contemplates our ending with a mind to legacy as a method to find immortality. I don't know whether that tendency is good or bad...though I am certain there are bits of both in there. But ultimately, it is who we are as a species, and I would rather honor the things that make us human in the best way than reject them because some choose to use them in the worst. In the end, our immortality will come in the connections we make with one another, and in the things we make with our own two hands, that endure.

For me, connecting with community can be something practical--seeking a community of similarly-spiritual folks to socialize with, perhaps to do ritual with, to exchange ideas and support and take action together for the betterment of our wider community (even those that surely believe I am hell-bound), as with the Midsummer ritual and beach clean-up my daughter and I attended last weekend. Connecting with community can be a matter of embracing or confronting those ideas and ideals (and the gods that represent them) that are a part of what makes us human--democracy (Demokratia/Libertas), retribution (Nemesis), justice (Dike), retaliation, (Poene), victory (Nike), Adicia (injustice), etc. (a list of the Greek minor deities that "preside over the human condition"). It might mean volunteering or giving to charities that assist those in need in honor of a loved one, venerating one's ancestors as a regular religious practice, or something else all together that I've not thought about.

The question is, what do you do to connect with community as a part of your spiritual practice?