Community

These are the  thoughts going through my mind this morning: how we can't get through this life alone, but that we live in such a world where it is very, very easy to become afraid and isolated and lose our sense of community, of belonging, of being part of something far bigger than our own little circle.  A friend of mine recently blogged about this very thing, and the different lengths people will go to to feel something (if you are interested, her blog is www.formerlyaprildawn@blogspot.com), and it both amazes and saddens me to realize how cut off we, as a people, really are from one another.  I live in a small town, which in a sense makes it easier; the people at the grocery store know us if not by name than at least by sight; I work with the public so there are a lot of people who know both me and my family, at least peripherally. But that is just surface stuff, the casual "Hey, how are you, how are the kids" stuff that we all engage in.  I am glad of it, because the more people know my family, the more likely it is that they are going to pay more attention to the things they see (which has already been extremely beneficial with having a teenaged daughter who thought that she could get away with a few things this summer because she was home while I was at work; I got several phone calls at the office from people who saw my daughter and, knowing me at least on the surface, knew that her behavior was not something I was aware of).  And that is great, of course, something we should all be blessed to have-but it isn't enough.

I guess it is different for everyone.  I mean, I come to Gather, I have another blog, but for me, I think that has more to do with the fact that I am a little opinionated, like to rant and talk and discuss, than it has to do with attempting to make a connection to any person or person in particular.  Frankly, I like to write, I like to talk, and I am a bit of an egoist-I like the fact that there are places where I can basically write everything and anything I want to, and the worst that can happen is I get some nasty comments.  But is that a community?  Or is a sense of community derived from face-to-face interaction with a living, breathing person?  Or is it a combination of both?  I don't know the answer to that.

What I do know is that we as a whole aren't doing ourselves any favors by isolating ourselves and confining ourselves to only the things we know, the things and people that we have surrounded ourselves with.  I am afraid that part of the problem with this next couple of generations is in part due to that loss of community.  We don't know our neighbors anymore, so when the kid down the road breaks into a home, they aren't doing something to a specific person, they are just committing a crime against one more namelss, faceless person.  It is so much harder to hurt a person you know well, to commit a crime against the woman who baked cookies for you every day after school, whose kids you grew up with, whose yard in shich you used to catch fireflies.  It is a vicious cycle, though, because wer also live in a world where there IS a lot of violence, a lot of wariness and fear and suspicion, and a good part of it is warrranted-so we isolate ourselves even more.

I wish I knew what the solution was; I know that for us, we try to make an effort to do more htings, with more people, and find family-type activities where we might meet other families like ours, with similar ideas and thoughts.  It helps-we have a small little group of people who know and love one another, who watch out for one another's kids and houses and hearst.  It still isn't enough, but it helps.