Since the start of this year, I’ve increasingly found myself rethinking about the meaning of community.
I think it began when I downloaded a Kindle version of David Brooks‘ latest book How To Know A Person: The Art Of Seeing Others Deeply And Being Deeply Seen (2023), in which he mentioned community and someone by the name of Peter Block, who has championed the power of community for over a decade.
Block had written a book on it too, called Community – The Structure of Belonging (2nd Edn, 2018). The irony is that even though I’m the reader in the family who amasses books (borrowed or bought) by the truckload, it’s my wife who has that book! But of course, my wife’s job in the last two decades has been about pretty much nothing else other than building communities (she works at a social service agency that champions the power of community).
I’ve just been a lot slower to pick up on it.
What A Community Isn’t
Silly really to be bringing this up now. After all, who doesn’t know what a community is, or isn’t plugged into some form of community or other, right?
Be it the workplace or school or even on a package tour. All of us are at one point or another connected to a group, even if it’s for a short spell. And by extension, we would imbibe the identity of the group while we’re in it.
Yet those aren’t the communities I’m talking about. And if you think those are your communities, I hope that by the end of reading this post, you might reconsider.
I’m also not talking about exclusive club memberships. Or being born into the right family or family business that’s grown into some empire. I’m not talking about some staff card dangling on a lanyard many workers today drape around their necks. Like a pearl necklace or a badge of honor. A badge that allows you to tap into restricted areas others are barred from.
No. Those aren’t communities. At least not the sort I’m beginning to experience in this season of my life.
What A Community Is
I’ve been involved in two social groups I helped birthed and helmed last year.
I consider these to be communities. My communities.
One’s a fathering community that started in March 2023. The other, a writers club I set up with another writer friend in August.
The Ordinary Dads (March, 2023)
The first is a ground-up initiative started by a couple of self-identified stay-at-home dads. We wanted to bring others like us into a gathering that talks to one another. Nothing more.
But more to the point, nothing less.
We gather monthly face-to-face to chat. Or we wax lyrical and often over all manner of dad jokes and hacks. We do so over multiple texts to one another in a group chat that has grown in the past 13 months from six to 43 members.
The dads in this community have bonded over parenting struggles, even educational and social issues that prick us. But most of all, we safely move and connect in a space where we’re accepted and valued for who we are and our decision to prioritise parenting beyond conventional notions of what defines a father — a (financial) provider and protector.
The CNF Writers Club (August 2023)
The second community I helped to start is a gathering of writing enthusiasts with a desire to bond over our common love for the writing craft. And a desire to someday get published. Either regularly on various online platforms, or in a mass-produced print publication.
What’s made this group a community for me is our commitment to encourage one another in our struggles to write well. We share news, resources, advice, and tips to spur our writing to ever greater heights of excellence. We commiserate with one another when we inevitably hit our Writers Block. Or we console each other when we feel discouraged over a piece of writing that seems to fall short of a punch line, but we don’t know how to rescue it.
In each of these communities, I’ve found myself supported, invigorated, and sustained in ways I truly feel are life-affirming and sustaining.
Why The Sudden Interest To Talk About Community?
As a regular blogger who writes about issues like autism, parenting, and life in general, it’s not unusual for me to look at society and ponder many of the issues we face today. Plus, I’m into the “meaning-and-purpose” season of my life as I move closer to my mid-50s. So these issues increasingly take center stage as I wonder what kind of world I’m bequeathing to my children and my students (I still teach part-time).
As I ponder, my desire and interest is to address each one of these issues. To try and figure them out.
But with one successive crisis following another in this volatile world today, I find myself increasingly vexed. How can we arrest the downward spiral mankind seems to be caught up in? Every day we see newsfeeds or watch newsreels that seem to tell us that this world is spinning out of control!
So I can’t help but wonder, what or who can rescue us from the state we’re in?
As a Protestant Christian, I believe fervently in a God who will eventually come to set us free. But between now and then, I am increasingly certain that the solution (on this side of heaven at least) lies in communities of care.
Communities like mine on a small, humble scale.
Or communities like The Weavers, on a far larger, nationwide scale. Also my wife’s social service agency, Beyond Social Services.
A Community That Offers Hope
The Weavers (2018)
The Weavers, officially called Weave The Social Fabric Project, was founded by David Brooks in 2018. It sought to “address the crisis of broken social trust that has left Americans divided along many lines, isolated and unable to address common needs. The project aims to turn Americans into a nation of weavers, spreading connection and belonging.”
They believe that changing a culture of hyper-individualism is the key to “healing the disconnection, isolation, and despair” in society and building social trust. They support those struggling to “build healthy, connected, and inclusive communities.”
Beyond Social Services (1969)
Closer to home, Beyond Social Services, where my wife works, seeks (among other things) to “help stabilize families, enable economic well-being, promote good health, facilitate education and learning, create safe spaces, and nurture caring communities.”
They “envision a nation where low-income individuals, families, and communities can marshal goodwill across society. To live purposeful, satisfying, and hopeful lives. An inclusive society that continues to remove barriers impeding the dignity, progress, and integration of the poor.”
While many so-called communities, groupings, and organizations offer their members services, communities like The Weavers and Beyond have helped me see that true communities offer care, not just handouts or hobbies.
And so my constant challenge to myself is to ask if I am plugged into caring communities that offer and receive care and concern. Ones that lift my spirit and empower me for life.
Helping me learn, in turn, how to offer the same to them and others.
So what about you dear reader?
Are you plugged into such a community too?
