Community Life - Part 4

Everyone longs for community. Most people find it in one way or another. Whether it is in a church, a club, a lease, or even facebook, people find a way to connect with other people who have something in common with them. There is a website that is like a community “directory” and there are more than 2000 “Intentional Communities” in the US alone. Ours is not listed and I’m sure there are many others that aren’t. These also do not include, retirement communities and “gated communities” which are on the rise because people not only want to live around people with whom they have something in common, they want to feel safe. The list probably doesn’t include Amish and Mennonite communities among others like the Hutterites. In the 1950’s most everyone lived in a community. We knew our neighbors, and it was the day of outdoor barbecues and backyard baseball. Today, most people don’t know their neighbors and if they do they are suspicious of them.

It reminds me of when we first moved to Romania, 5 years after communism fell. We rented a house in a small village where all of the houses and yards were connected by tall walls that you couldn’t see over. Our landlady had us over for dinner and whispered during the meal, “Don’t trust your neighbor! Stay away from them. They are with the secret police!” About a week later our neighbor came to our gate with a television. He said he could hear over the wall that we had children and thought they might enjoy watching something. He also invited us to dinner. During the meal he whispered, “Stay away from your landlady! Don’t trust her, she is with the secret police!” Rob and I looked at one another and tried not to laugh.

The way communism accomplished this type of fear and suspicion in people is to bulldoze down whole villages (communities), where people lived, worked, celebrated, and died together, and moved them to different locations. Usually to live in tall “blocks” or apartment buildings where no one knew their neighbor. I started this post to tell you what community means to me and never quite got there. May be next time. Meanwhile, here is a quote from one of my favorite authors.

“A community is the mental and spiritual condition of knowing that the place is shared, and that the people who share the place define and limit the possibilities of each other's lives. It is the knowledge that people have of each other, their concern for each other, their trust in each other, the freedom with which they come and go among themselves.” 
― Wendell Berry