Living Community

Community. This is a word that generates so much for people. It can mean a place for one person and a vision or feeling for another. It also seems in my lifetime to be an ever evolving concept. It is used to describe many different kinds of subgroups: online community, work community, and global community. I have been trying to define what this means to me because I truly believe that making the original idea of community work in a positive way is key to us as human kind surviving on this earth without destroying it or one another first.

Simply defined, community is a group people with common interests living in a particular area. It seems as though concept of community in America has changed dramatically during the span from the 1950s-1960s until now. Then, our neighbors often served as an extension of our family, coming to fill in when an extra hand was necessary. It was not considered an invasion of privacy because we needed each other. People readily traded their goods and services. I remember in our small town even in the 70s customers would buy on “credit” at the hardware store and either provide a service of equal value in return or eventually pay off their debt over time.

Today we do not look to one another for help or services nearly as often. We frequently just hire a professional to get the job done. Our generation has lost trust and dependence on each other while striving for our own survival financially, forgetting that there is an element of working hand in hand with one another that doesn’t involve money at all. It involves caring and sharing; two concepts we drill into preschool-aged kids and then keep our fingers crossed they retain for the rest of their lives.

Ferenc Mate, author of A Reasonable Life, says, "How did we let the one thing that was the very cornerstone of North America's culture, both native and thereafter, its oldest, proudest, most socially perfect heritage, vanish? Perhaps...the snake-oil salesman got to us all and sold us new and improved progress; a thousand flashy gadgets that not only closed the local craftsmen's doors, but made us all less dependent on each other, so little by little we drifted apart."

I know there are exceptions to these statements; many cases here in our local area. And as the economy toughens for everyone in the world, I think we are witnessing a shift from me, me, me to us, us, us. If you’ve got a great story about your community, share it with as many people as you can. The more we hear about how community can be successful, the more we believe in our own. It is becoming more common and ‘cool’ to belong to a close knit community, volunteer, buy local, eat from local growers, and support businesses in your immediate area. I hope this trend continues, for my kids’ sake, and that someday they understand that giving of yourself is more rewarding than anything you can give to yourself. Mate says, "It's up to us. Each of us...We need to come alive again and live as simply, freely, happily, and passionately as we did when we were children."

My wish is that you all have community to warm you and that you play a part in doing that for someone else. Spreading the wealth of compassion and functionality is so simple to do, but so meaningful. Unfortunately, it is also often forgotten among busy, stressful lives. Our world is made up of a melting pot of communities, tribes, and villages that survive not because they’re the fittest but because they care about preserving each other. So I hope you’ll take time to reflect on your community today and how its impact on you makes this world a better place to be.

"There is no doubt that we can make major changes, not in a generation, not in decades, but in weeks. Maybe we should call this a war--that seems to unite us best. But there need be no shots fired, or bodies mangled... And we will all win a habitable earth, livable cities, and unpoisoned, verdant land. And some sanity. Some calm, some time to know our children Some pride in being human." --Ferenc Mate