Ann Leach

As I am doing some reading this morning about the importance of community, being active in a community, building a community, and then tribe - building one, the importance of having one, etc, the book Isabelle has, written by Joy Wilt, called A Kid's Guide to Making Friends comes to mind. The book talks about three types of friends: Acquaintances, Playmates, and Best friends; and how they are different from each other. It's very specific. All three types of friendships a re important and serve different roles in our lives, but it's important to recognize that they are different and require different amounts of energy and maintenance. The people writing about community and tribes aren't seeing the differences and are blending the two. At least to me. A community is a network of acquaintances, playmates, and best friends who all share a common purpose. The connections are more casual than formal and generally require a minimal amount of energy. The purpose is w...

... is the book I am finishing up this morning. And I am compelled to share this paragraph from the epilogue: "I've only recently become aware of my good fortune in having grown up in an environment where everyone knew everyone else. In our community no one was a stranger. If we met an unfamiliar face on the way to the Farmers Store, we offered a greeting because we knew that person had to be a guest in the house of someone we knew. We were privileged to live with the comforting conviction that we had absolutely nothing to fear from people. Of course, we were quite aware that there were dangerous forces and conditions over which we had no control, but we were confident that no person was out to do us injury. This atmosphere created in us a sense of security, a sense of belonging in the world. Is there a more valuable gift than that?" We, here in the US, are constantly on the lookout for the bad to happen. Bad courts us through the media all day long. And it has ...