Resources, Part 7: Your Community

Have you ever given much thought to how you want to experience yourself through the groups of people, not just individuals or individual circumstances? Because human beings are social animals, we will never be satisfied in isolation. Embracing the concept of belonging to a community means considering your own role in the communities to which you most belong. What do you want to give your community (or communities)? What do you want to take from it?

Your idea of the community to which you belong and relate may be different than someone else’s. For example, I have a dear friend who does world-wide, medical mission trips. Her idea of community includes the entire worldly experience of mankind. The idea of the community I choose to affect comes in much smaller groups, like my coworkers or my close friends. Neither is more correct than another. There are schools of thought that suggest our influences role out in concentric circles, and that we cannot expect to change the world, if our own households are a mess. And there are people who, recognizing that “a prophet has no honor in his own country,” begin at the outer edges of the world and move inward. At the most basic level, it’s helpful to decide to which camp you most likely belong, in order to choose your own activities and level involvement in the various communities that surround you (work, church, neighborhood, etc.).    

Once you identify what group(s) to which you most sense you belong, then it’s time to identify your own role within those groups: voyeur or activist? King or soldier? Gracious host or guard at the door? Some combination of any or all of these? Who, again, do you most want to be? How do you want to experience yourself in your community? What do you have to gain or offer?

After you’ve given this some thought, you might just check out the few resources I have, below, each designed for connecting with community members. Naturally, your online community of FaceBook is one example of reaching out and remaining connected, but I am going to encourage you to go a step further and involve yourself, physically, in your communities, however you define them.

Interested in making a difference in an area within twenty miles of your home? Go to http://www.sixdegrees.org/ for Six Degrees, an organizational initiative of Kevin Bacon’s, and do a volunteer search.

Learning to speak French? Interested in books? Collect buttons? Ever hear of Meetup (http://www.meetup.com/)? This brilliant website goes beyond dating sites and social networks to help you find groups in your area that share your interests.

The point is that we do not live in a vacuum. In fact, research shows that much of our depression is spawned by our lack of feeling connected to the communities and people around us. If you want to protect yourself from that, if you truly want to live in joy, don’t let yourself live in isolation. Choose a community, and get involved!