How can we rebuild community?
While many have found ways to connect during the pandemic, and in some cases, relationships may have even deepened, the threat to community life has been very real. The sudden and often extended closure of schools, churches, public accommodations, and workplaces has weakened or even paralyzed many communities. Some of them have struggled through, managing and navigating the restrictions and conditions, while others wait hopefully for a better time.
As we look towards a brighter and more interactive future it is important to consider:
How we will rebuild?
How we will recreate?.
Communities & Wellbeing
In past Walden Gatherings we have studied various aspects of communities, communal wellbeing, social participation, and their role in flourishing. It is clear in this research that communities make critical contributions to the wellbeing of our country and of our world.
At its best, community brings people together, offers a sense of belonging, and points us towards what is most important.
It takes a community
Of course, some of the hard work of rebuilding will require courageous leaders and community members to devote their time and resources to sustaining or re-establishing community life or preserving what exists.. But the rebuilding of community will also require decisions from countless individuals to re-engage once again, to reinvest in what have perhaps become more distant or estranged relationships, or to go through the hard work of establishing new ones.
Rebuilding community is ultimately the work of each and every one of us.
Which is why I’d like you to join our community on this special day in nature. To re-connect, re-explore, re-gather & re-grow.
But most importantly, re-define our immediate sense of community in order to re-evaluate what communities need to become. - NJ
We are social creatures. We need community. Let us work together to re-establish what was lost, to rebuild community, and to strengthen it once again.
