Our goal is to create a beloved community and this will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our lives.
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
I was trying to think about where I first learned about community and neighborhood and family. Many of those details are absorbed as children when we just find ourselves in a family in a neighborhood in a community we may not have chosen but were born into.
I remember, as a child watching “Mr Roger’s Neighborhood” and feeling so safe and happy watching him sing his way through the show and deal with some pretty interesting issues along the way. While I don’t agree with his stance on everything… I think he pioneered a lot of controversial topics in a very safe and loving way that enabled children and adults to accept themselves and others. He created a virtual community where few topics were off the table for discussion.
Today social media is invading all of our spaces and senses with dares and dialogs and demonstrations of how things shouldn’t and should be.
In his Ted Talk on Building Resilient Communities Nick Tilsen talks about taking conflict and challenges, and disconnects, and finding ways to reconnect with our real identities, who we really are and find ways to rebound from challenges that we face. To see what really matters, commit to the process, commit to the pathway; commit to coming together – continuing the work.
The decision we have to make is how we are going to live our lives in the face of everything that is around us invading our subconscious each day. I don’t think any one of us is free of these pressures. The balance comes in putting them in their place. Mindfully focusing on what matters. And that is where transformation living can occur.
~Lydia Patrick
