Regaining Community, Changing the World

Winter is my favorite time of year. Anyone who knows me, knows I'm not merely saying that because new record high temperatures are being set here in the Ozarks. Summertime tends to zap my creativity, and I often feel less inspired. Such is the case as I struggled to write my blog this week. As a solution, I looked back through past entries and found one from two years ago which covers what I was trying to find the words to say. With modifications, what follows is mostly a repeat.

There are many factors eroding our communities. For example, as young people look for work in their chosen professions, they feel the pull to move away from their hometowns and families to find jobs, and when they do, it leaves a void.

Our consumer-driven, always-on-a-tight-schedule society prompts us to want "what we want, when we want it," leading us to not consider the source of what we're buying, where it came from and how, with a little more patience and shopping around, we might support a small business with a purchase rather than a huge corporation. Fast food drive-throughs vs. local eateries is a prime example.

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.

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, unless, perhaps, their situation has been posted on Facebook.

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." Most of us are probably not going to give up all of our possessions any time soon, but we can all take a cue from scripture and make small steps to change the way society works.

Supporting locally-owned businesses, buying locally-grown food, taking time for face-to-face chats, re-instating the ancient practice of bartering and remembering we are all connected to one another are ways to help regain a sense of community. Our small, daily decisions have the potential to make the greatest impact in our own little corner of the world, and that's how worldwide change happens.