Notes From My Knapsack 7-5-18

Notes From My Knapsack 7-5-18

Jeff Gill

 

What kind of community we want to become

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Carl Jung talked about the "collective unconscious" and Margaret Mead wrote about cultural patterns creating a community "state of mind." I'd just say we can become what we intentionally want to be. What kind of Granville do we want?

 

That may not seem very controversial to say, but there are so many assumptions we unconsciously work under that push back against that idea. Economic trends are seen as destiny, changes in social norms are a massive phenomenon in sum that no one place, let alone person, can resist them.

 

And I disagree. I may lack data for my argument, there may be little evidence that this stance is correct, but I plan to keep operating out of a belief that we can be the kind of place we want to live in, if we think about what that is, talk to each other about what it looks like, and take some simple steps to be more that sort of place.

 

Let me start with a simple step, if I can't make a global case for swimming against the tide. I think it self-evident that if you don't think about community, if you take it for granted, it will drift with the tide if not lapse into entropy and decay. If you drive a car without caring for it, you will run out of gas; if you keep up with the gas only, you'll run out of oil or coolant or rubber on your tires. You have to be intentional about maintenance on your car. Ditto a home, likewise a relationship. So why not a community as a whole?

 

Writing recently about community, I've gotten a number of emails and a few print letters from people expressing their concerns over what Granville is right now. Size is one common thread, that we've gotten too big to be the kind of place we (or they) want us to be, or at least that we've grown too fast. Another recurring theme is speed, which sometimes mentions growth as a spur. People in a hurry, on Broadway, in the checkout line, at events, or in general.

 

From hurry and speed grows another weed much mentioned: impatience and discourtesy. Now, I've only lived here about fifteen years, so I can't speak to the cordiality of eras gone by with certainty. I do know that you tend to be more friendly to those you know, and if you're a stranger you can be ill at ease in ways that comes across in strange ways. More turnover let alone new faces each year can surely create some social tensions. None of that explains what I think I have seen, of cars dashing hazardously through crosswalks and utterly impersonal gestures of rudeness. The social fabric has changed, how much I'm not sure, but the reality is there.

 

Which bids me ask: can we reweave it? Could we be gentler with each other, take our turn or even let someone else in front of us? Be less abrupt and insistent in person or behind the wheel, passing through town or in our face-to-face interactions?

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he hopes you'll indulge him further on this topic this summer! Give him your views at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.