Katie,
You have said in one email what I have been trying to say for so long. We don't see the need for community until there is a crisis or a common goal. Sport teams usually work well together because there is the shared goal of winning medals or trophies. The army works well because you are fighting for your life and you don't want to leave anyone behind. Political parties bring people together to elect their candidate. But once the emergency is over, the crisis ends, or the election endss, it's back to business as usual.
I believe what Jim says is true. We are hard-wired for community. However, for centuries we have been conditioned for individual survival and self-fulfillment. What will break us out of this is not certain. But Katie is absolutely right, it takes hard work. And most of us are not conditioned to work hard for community, let alone peace. Community usually takes overwhelming sacrifice. If it were easy, we wouldn't be having this conversation and we wouldn't be in the situation of loneliness and isolation that we often find ourselves. But at least we know this and want to do something about it. Most people live their whole lives believing in self-preservation at the expense of others with no friends and no hope. I am fortunate that I have hope because I have friends such as you Katie and everyone here on the PBJF list serv.
I can't wait to see you! Lunch and the holidays will be special because you will be here with us!
Miguel
From: jimbelcher350@me.com
Subject: Re: {PBJFlorida} Fwd: community definition
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2012 12:36:21 -0500
To: pbjflorida@googlegroups.com
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You have said in one email what I have been trying to say for so long. We don't see the need for community until there is a crisis or a common goal. Sport teams usually work well together because there is the shared goal of winning medals or trophies. The army works well because you are fighting for your life and you don't want to leave anyone behind. Political parties bring people together to elect their candidate. But once the emergency is over, the crisis ends, or the election endss, it's back to business as usual.
I believe what Jim says is true. We are hard-wired for community. However, for centuries we have been conditioned for individual survival and self-fulfillment. What will break us out of this is not certain. But Katie is absolutely right, it takes hard work. And most of us are not conditioned to work hard for community, let alone peace. Community usually takes overwhelming sacrifice. If it were easy, we wouldn't be having this conversation and we wouldn't be in the situation of loneliness and isolation that we often find ourselves. But at least we know this and want to do something about it. Most people live their whole lives believing in self-preservation at the expense of others with no friends and no hope. I am fortunate that I have hope because I have friends such as you Katie and everyone here on the PBJF list serv.
I can't wait to see you! Lunch and the holidays will be special because you will be here with us!
Miguel
From: jimbelcher350@me.com
Subject: Re: {PBJFlorida} Fwd: community definition
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2012 12:36:21 -0500
To: pbjflorida@googlegroups.com
Katie and all,
I love what you say about connection and belonging needing to be consciously and intentionally fostered.
I love what you say about the world not being ready for community for its own sake. We gather around a mission, a possibility... Charles Eisenstein says that we won't come together until the economy totally collapses (within ten years) and we realize we once again need each other.
We are facing a long list of converging crises and we are not prepared to work together to respond effectively.
Many sources I read say we are hard-wired for connectedness. It is our deep human need.
Hi everybody,I think this is a really important conversation, and at the same time, it boggles my mind to try to think about it. I have been nearly incessantly thinking about community since moving to New York. Everything here is so big that you really need to find your niche to function, and I think my situation is different than most people because I moved up here largely to be with a community of friends. Leaving Florida, however, meant leaving a very strong sense of community I had found with YAYA and the larger progressive activist scene in Central Florida. For me, this sense of community was rooted in a social issue-- it came from people coming together to work towards a common vision of a world where the people who harvest food in this country are treated with dignity. Because we all knew that we shared this common vision, it was easy for us to collaborate. We were able to work through our often very significant differences in nationality/race/class/religion/political association/gender/sexual orientation/worldview in order to collaborate, and this collaboration eventually led to a sense of connection and belonging. Connection and belonging don't always happen naturally, though. In my experiences with different types of communities, I've come to really believe that these things need to be consciously and intentionally fostered. They don't just happen, as much as I wish they did.I don't honestly know if the world is ready for community for its own sake. Although it makes logical, rational, emotional, psychological, metaphysical, medical, ecological and economic sense to be in community with others, I think having a concrete baseline for gathering is often necessary to bring people together. There has to be an impetus, and once people are together and can commit to intentionally sustaining this, then yes, all of these possibilities Jim is discussing can happen. But I think our society is disconnected and socially awkward to the point that gathering for the sake of gathering, and community for the sake of community, are still distant dreams.The community of friends referenced above and I have known each other for more than 5 years now, first living for 9 months in a rather isolated setting, and then spending a significant amount of time together, including on and off living and organizing together, since those initial 9 months. The ones who are here in NYC with me and I have started gathering every Sunday for dinner. These gatherings generally last 4-5 hours. In addition to this, we have been planning and facilitating workshops on community building. Despite all of this input and commitment, it's still hard. Sometimes impossibly hard. Sometimes, like last night, everyone ends up feeling terrible and misunderstood and we start to wonder if it's worth it to continue meeting, and are we gathering just for the sake of gathering. Is it worth it? What would worth it look like? What are we trying to do? Are all groups of friends this crazy? Is true community possible?And yet we keep gathering, and for now I'm optimistic that perhaps that impulse to keep doing it even though sometimes it sucks is exactly the whole point of it, of all of it.I don't know what I'm getting at except that I would like to be in on a lunch if that happens. I leave on Wednesday to drive home. I hope this time around we can work something out.Happy holidays to this virtual community,Katie
On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 11:31 AM, Penny Villegas <pennyvillegas31@gmail.com> wrote:
I had the idea that we are blind men/women examining the elephant. Let's just get together and talk about what we're doing and what else we want to do. Yes to lunch!
On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 11:29 AM, Michael Rodriguez <fireryphoenix@hotmail.com> wrote:
Jim and Penny are right too. And excellent point Rita. We are a community right here. We may not always see each other but we care FOR each other, and we try to find out how each other is doing if we don't hear from one another in a long time. Penny is so good at that. We are not perfect but we strive to help each other and to be community.
I like the idea of lunch!
Miguel
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2012 10:48:34 -0500
Subject: Re: {PBJFlorida} Fwd: community definition
From: rluceyis@gmail.com
To: pbjflorida@googlegroups.com
Jim: I really like what you have said, outlined. I miss being part of a community - and I have tried many institutions - seeking, seeking. Perhaps this will be our community right here - and then we could plan to get together for lunch at least once a month to say where we are! and where we are going.Rita Lucey
On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 10:13 AM, jim belcher <jimbelcher350@me.com> wrote:
Penny and all,Community means something much more than discussion of problems and solutions and actions. It is a space were people come together to connect deeply, to know each other and to be known and to create possibility together. Possibility calls us to the future; possibility calls us to action; possibility empowers collective creativity. Possibility unites and engages us.(Focus on problems/solutions keeps us stuck in the past, separated from each other and mired in our opinions).Possibility is a product of collective creative collaboration. And the birthplace of this kind of collaboration, connection, sense of belonging and being deeply known is vulnerability.When we shift our focus from problems to possibilities and from isolation to connectedness and from scarcity to "we are enough", we begin to heal ourselves, our relationships and our communities.Building genuine community is action.jimDefine community for me. Does it mean that we gather to discuss problems and solutions? If that's what it means then we do indeed suck. We haven't even been able to get a reading group together. So I changed it to a discussion group with invitations to people to bring what they want to discuss. Nope.I find some community with the Idignity monthly events when we help homeless people get social security cards, birth certificates, etc. My Sofia Circle, a group of women meeting for more than ten years to pray and meditate and study, also is community. I have wanted to find a "community" for social action, peace action but I haven't found it yet.Does anybody want to work to get Pam Bondi out? Rick Scott?I'd like to work for gun control and for more recycling.Help!Penny
On Sun, Dec 16, 2012 at 9:10 AM, jim belcher <jimbelcher350@me.com> wrote:
Penny and Miguel and all,We are not the only ones frustrated, angry, and indignant. These crises demand collective and creative action. There is no one answer, no simple action. Science does not know how this is going to play out; we do know we are at several catastrophic tipping points.The best we can do at this point is to begin coming together to build strong, collaborative, creative communities, able to respond to the changes as they come. Currently we suck at community, collaboration and creativity.JimThanks Jim and all. This is a great article and I know how right she is. But I feel very frustrated that smart people who know the situation just sit around and exchange good articles and tsktsk about it.Sorry for my bah humbug attitude butI want some ideas with action or plan.
Sent from my iPhoneSee below.Our sense of loss of meaning is directly tied to the violence toward nature we are all complicit in.
Begin forwarded message:From: Common Dreams <commondreams@commondreams.org>
Date: December 13, 2012, 5:32:51 PM EST
Subject: News & Views | Naomi Klein: 'I'd Rather Fight Like Hell'
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News & Views | 12.13.12
Featured...
'I'd Rather Fight Like Hell': Naomi Klein's Fierce New Resolve to Fight for Climate Justice
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/12/13
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