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Today's
quotation:
Community,
then, is an indispensable term in any discussion of the connection
between people and land. A healthy community is a form that
includes all the
local things that are connected by the larger, ultimately mysterious
form of the
Creation. In speaking of community, then, we are speaking of a
complex
connection not only among human beings or between humans and their
homeland but also between human economy and nature, between forest
or prairie and field or orchard, and between troublesome creatures and
pleasant ones. All neighbors are included.
Wendell Berry
The Art of the Commonplace
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Today's
Meditation:
It would be
wonderful if we could build healthier communities, and
many people are trying to do so. Healthy communities
would actually help to preserve this planet and the life
on it; they would create environments in which people
could help each other and other living things, and we would be
able to see tremendous drops in issues like suicide and
depression. We wouldn't eradicate these things, of
course, but so much of how we feel about the world is very
strongly influenced by the ways that we interact with
other people that the effects of healthy communities would
definitely be overwhelmingly positive.
We
tend to build places to live rather than
community-oriented spaces. We build boxes and then
furnish the insides to our taste and spend most of our
time inside them, which is rather unfortunate. It
would be so nice for all of us if we were able to live
among other people and animals and plants with mutual
respect, if we were able to interact with everything
regularly rather than sporadically. What I notice in
most of our living spaces is that many people avoid eye
contact and greetings, and things seem to be getting worse
in these days of the portable screens that demand so much
of our attention.
In most of our communities, we also avoid taking
responsibility for the plants and the animals who share
space with us. We develop everything for our
convenience, but very few things for the convenience-- or
even survival-- of our fellow inhabitants of this
planet. If we're truly to be good stewards of all
that has been entrusted to us, then it's important for us
to include all in our idea of community.
Communities
can be beautiful. They can be inspiring and
uplifting, and they can contribute in positive ways to the
physical, mental, and emotional health of their
inhabitants. If they aren't that, then they aren't
really communities at all-- rather, they're simply places
where people live.
We
can't despair, though. It is possible to develop
community, and most of our truly significant changes are
started by one or two individuals who do their best to
positively influence their environments. I can do
all I can to contribute to creating a true community where
I live, and to recruit others to help me to do the
same. The benefit would be a much healthier place
for all of the community's inhabitants, including
ourselves. So what are we waiting for?
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