Building Community - piece by piece, bowl by bowl
A friend sent me this piece by Joan Chittister from January of this year.
https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/what-us-needs-most-right-now-what-we-lack-community
The author is a Catholic Sister or Nun - quite engaged, a writer, speaker, etc. She is shocked at our nation's failure to create community. We seem to be falling apart at the seams. But we seem really short on ideas for fixing the problem.
I have spent the last few years reading and writing about how we failed humans operate or fail to operate. There's not much I can do about our fearless leaders - Sister Joan seems quite upset with them.
I donate a few dollars. I support some of our local politicians - and sometimes they actually listen to my concerns. But for the national level, my only real contact in my whole life has been to thank three sitting US. Senators for their service on our behalf: Rudy Boschwitz, Paul Wellstone and Al Franken. I have met Norm Coleman but he was not a Senator then. And I was once in the same room with Hubert Humphrey, and then once with Walter Mondale - the latter was a REALLY big room - an airplane hanger.
They all seemed to appreciate the thought, but . . . my ability to influence that whole process is non existent. I am worried about it, but . . . what can I really do?
What I can do is reach out to my neighbors, and get to know them. Our neighborhood is mostly retired folk. We lean a bit progressive, but a lot of us fy U.S. flags night and day and vote conservative. We represent a broad spectrum of religions: None, to Buddhist and Catholic and Baptist. We have a little racial diversity. This is my community, and we helped create it.
In 2014, my lovely wife and I were driving to "the lake", and we heard a book review on NPR. It was about this book: Soup Night - Recipes for Creating Community Around a Pot of Soup. I never bought a copy of the book, an I feel bad about that, because we owe the author a round of thanks.
Because of that book review, we live in the best neighborhood in town. All of our neighbors say that this is the best neighborhood they have ever lived in. I know them all by name. I know some of their kids, grandkids, friends. If I need a tool, or a long ladder, I know who has one. If I need a hand, I have many friends to call on. If I go to their door, they always greet me warmly. Some exchange small gifts of baked goods for holidays. We have supported folks with serious illness. We have banded together to get a group discount on window washing, or vent cleaning.
After our immediate family and our church friends, this is our community. We value these people, We respect them and their values and opinions. We are not about trying to change them. We are certainly not in competition with them. If I need some help, I know where to look. If someone is messing around with the neighbor's car or garage, I will certainly challenge them. My neighbor would have let me know that someone was going to be there while they were gone.
We think that cities and neighborhoods work better when people
actually get to know each other.
(See Bowling Alone, by Robert Putnam.)
The author suggested that we use some simple rules:
Repost the sheet for each event.
The first time, we asked guests to bring their own BOWL!
(The idea was to cut down on cleanup
chores!) We eventually dropped that.
Give it a shot – it costs almost nothing, and it gives real benefits. And it might be contagious.
Let me know how that goes.
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