Regaining Community

With increasingly-sophisticated communication technology, the world has gotten "smaller" (or more flat, as some have proposed). As young people look for work in their chosen professions, they feel the pull to leave their hometowns and families to find jobs. Our consumer-driven society has led us to want "what we want, when we want it." We may not drive to California to buy our lettuce year-round, but we buy lettuce year-round which has been delivered to us from California. (Ironically, if you live in California, your lettuce may be coming from some where else. Unless the situation has changed recently, California imports as much lettuce as it exports every year.)

Not all modern advancements or situations are necessarily bad, but these are the kinds of things which have erroded our communities and contributed to society's larger problems. For example, I can't help feeling a sense of responsibility as I see images of oil washing up on the beaches of the Gulf Coast. So many of my habits require large amounts of electricity and other forms of energy, habits which are fueled by the very oil that is ruining the livelihood of thousands of people in the South.

Ironically, one of the most appealing aspects of popular online social-networking sites is a feeling that participants are part of a community. And in a sense, it's true. It has been such a pleasure for me to meet new friends and re-connect and be in touch with people I haven't seen in years via Facebook. In fact, as someone who has anti-social tendencies, it's been the perfect way for me to be part of a community while having few real obligations. And that's why online interaction cannot take the place of daily living in a caring community where everyone looks out for and helps take care of the others living around them. Most of us know about the latest disasters in the rest of the world, but we may not be as likely to know the heartache and needs of our neighbor down the road.

In the second chapter of Acts, we read of the early believers who were "together and had all things in common...and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need ...and breaking bread from house to house." I fear that many of us have lost that very real, solid sense of community.

I'm not advocating giving up Facebook, (I like it too much!), but I have to remind myself not to forget the people right in my own little corner of the world and consider ways to take a cue from the scripture above and make small steps to change the way society works. Supporting locally-owned businesses so our hometown economies thrive, buying locally-grown food to cut down on trucking expense and fuel use, taking time for face-to-face chats and remembering that we are all connected to one another are all ways to start regaining a sense of community. Our small, daily decisions have the potential to make the greatest impact.