As some of you know, for the past 12 years I have been entranced by the concept of community. I have come to this as I have been reinventing what the “Christian church” should actually mean and be. Yet, over and over, I have been gripped by how other issues relative to American society and culture are interwoven with this notion of community.
Today I was reading Wendell Berry and the Cultivation of Life: A Reader’s Guide
There is a lot to unpack in this gem, this American philosopher, so I hope in future days to continue to work through some of his writings and ideas. For now, today, I was gripped by Bonzo and Stevens take on Berry’s concerns relative to twin negative issues facing successful community.
What follows below are various quotes from the book and some musings on them. Let these thoughts soak in:
“An appropriate individuality, then, has its desires molded by obligations to the other, within the boundaries of community.”
Community confronts both the issue of individualism, that notion that pulls us to where we think we need no one, and the issue of globalism, that notion that pulls us to where we think we need no place since all the world is our home.
“[Wendell] Berry asserts that “’Every man for himself’ is a doctrine for a feeding frenzy or for a panic in a burning nightclub, appropriate for sharks or hogs or perhaps a cascade of lemmings. A society wishing to endure must speak the language of care-taking, faith-keeping, kindness, neighborliness, and peace. That language is anther precious resource that cannot be privatized.””
As Americans, we have in our DNA this quest for individualism, yet the story of that tale has been morphed through the years beyond what the actual history details. Yes, Daniel Boone carved out a path, but he did so for the communities to follow. Jamestown, the Pilgrims, Maryland succeeded because they strove together, collectively. The success of the Oregon Trail came in the community of journeyers across the vast North American continent.
“When you shop at Wal-Mart or Target or any of the “big-box stores,” the only possible connection you gain is a momentary encounter with a clerk. . .every other possible connection is rendered abstract almost immediately, leaving just money and products flying across a vast commercial hyperspace.”
The notion of opposing or resisting globalism is to come back to the local, and in doing so, to see the value in people.
“The implicit depersonalization of this spiritual system becomes explicit as people themselves are eliminated or subjugated because they are no longer practical.”
Or needed, as seen in our recent economic downturns. To thus think locally is to think of investment in others, certainly with money, but at a deeper level, investing in the building of trust and community. To support the other is to support a system that dehumanizes others.
“Community must mean a people locally placed and a people, moreover, not too numerous to have a common knowledge of themselves and their place.”
Wow—what a great definition. I have long stated that the greatest need of the human is “to be known” and “to know another deeply.” This quest to “know and be known” can only be done intentionally and takes my own decision to invest, to connect. When I have faced people pulling away from the community, they often do so accusing us of NOT being community, yet the real issue is often that they themselves have failed to remain “locally placed” and to invest in others, so they lack “the common knowledge” of the group.
We face a choice then, between the ties of connectedness and the pursuit of the always elusive “Good Life, High Life” that apparently only comes with the purchase of “more” and “better.” Community allows us to know and be known, and in that to find “home” and “place.”
And “coming home” is perhaps the place we all know that we wish to find