Community isn’t something you’re supposed to learn about in a book. But, at 25 years old, that’s exactly how I was introduced to the concept. What happened before then?
I grew up in St. Charles, MO where, during my youth, around 60-65K people resided. This county, just west of St. Louis, is:
Mostly white (85%);
On par with the national averages when it comes to education level;
Median home values of $214,500; and
Average salaries around $63,000.
It is quintessential, Midwest suburbia—you drive everywhere you need to go, everywhere you need to go is a national chain, and nearly every national chain you can imagine can be found.
The school districts are large (my high school had over 2,000 students), the political leanings are red, and the “Midwest nice” is insufferably inauthentic (sorry, I don’t have much love for my hometown, and the link I included shows all the racism I grew up around—start at 22:44 if short on time).
With that off my chest, let’s get back on topic.
Growing up, I had two domains of relationships, family and close friends. Family had two subdomains, blood-relation (e.g. parents, sisters, and grandparents) and sports-relation (e.g. teammates and coaches).
(If you want to argue community can exist once there are three people involved, fine. But, that’s not the lens I’m looking through.)
While church communities are a dime a dozen in St. Charles, my family didn’t do much churchgoing after we aged out of Sunday school. We were the Easter and Christmas crowd.
I don’t know what other communities existed, but we weren’t members of any. The only chance I had of feeling like I was in a large community was at school. But, since mainstream schooling is survival-of-the-fittest and hyper-individualistic by design, community-building was the last thing on any administrator's mind—higher test scores or bust.
If there’s one thing that I could confidently say was missing from my blissful and privileged childhood, it would absolutely be that lack of community belonging.
Ok, back to that book that gave me an introduction to things.
When I began my new job with Education Reimagined, they suggested two books as prime onboarding material—The End of Average by Todd Rose and Community: The Structure of Belonging by Peter Block.
The latter was world-shifting. Here are a few great quotes (oh, and by the way, Block is as prophetic on paper as he is in person):
“We are a community of possibilities, not a community of problems. Community exists for the sake of belonging and takes its identity from the gifts, generosity, and accountability of its citizens. It is not defined by its fears, its isolation, or its penchant for retribution. We currently have all the capacity, expertise, programs, leaders, regulations, and wealth required to end unnecessary suffering and create an alternative future.”
“Invitation is not only a step in bringing people together, it is also a fundamental way of being in a community. It manifests the willingness to live in a collaborative way. This means that a future can be created without having to force or sell it or barter for it. When we believe that barter or subtle coercion is necessary, we are operating out of a context of scarcity and self-interest, the core currencies of the economist.”
“It is when citizens stop waiting for professionals or elected leadership to do something, and decide they can reclaim what they have delegated to others, that things really happen.”
Knowing I was now working for an organization that was hellbent on keeping community as core to our identity was an incredible feeling. And, over four years later, that feeling has never ceased. It’s transformed how I show up every day and I honestly can’t remember how it felt before.
The only downside to holding community as an internal value is the increased empathy you’ll begin contending with. Someone’s loss in the community becomes your loss. The larger the community, the more loss there is to contend with. But, as Peter Block challenges us to do, we must look for the possibility.
Community in the Context of Enuff
Community First is the second distinction or rule for how we will be relating to “best choice.” Community is absolutely embedded in the Seventh Generation Principle, but it can be easy to read it within the small context of “family,” which simply wouldn’t suffice.
Indigenous cultures don’t have a narrow, “nuclear” lens of family. The tribe is family. The Earth is family. The animals are family. But, most of you reading this (and myself) did not grow up within Indigenous communities, so emphasizing Community First is necessary.
When it comes to making the “best choice,” we must investigate how each choice impacts the communities we live in. And, when we extend “community” to include all humankind, we begin operating very differently.
To take into consideration all humankind can feel like an impossible task. And, it might be. But, being ambitious from the start will put us in a far better position than shrugging our shoulders and relegating to self-preservation.
Self-preservation leads to mistrust, habitual defensiveness, a scarcity-mindset, and so many other illnesses that lead to continuous violence in all its insidious forms (e.g. systemic racism).
I personally don’t want to live with that mindset, so Community First will be my preference for choice-making. If you are cool with that, then you will enjoy this community, too.
One more distinction to go and then we’ll start digging into the questions of Enuff. To foreshadow a bit, I was going to start with how much sleep is enough sleep, but due to a frustrating discovery, I will be starting with a far more ambiguous exploration. Stay tuned for that in two weeks.