On Halloween this year, just as I was getting ready to hand out candy by myself, a neighbor called and said they were going to have a fire pit at the end of their driveway. She asked if I wanted to bring my candy over, so we could visit while we handed out candy together. It wasn’t a tough call. We lit the fire, set up some chairs around it, opened a bottle of wine, and caught up a bit on each other’s lives while trick-or-treaters started coming by.
Not surprisingly, it was far more fun than sitting alone at home waiting for the doorbell to ring. But here’s the really interesting part. There was something about our set-up—the fact that we were sitting outside, perhaps, or by a welcoming, warming fire, that drew others to our circle. Teenage trick-or treaters stopped to talk to us about where they lived, what school they went to, and what activities they were involved in. Parents of smaller children lingered a bit longer to talk than they normally did at my doorstep. And even other neighbors wandered over to join us. One woman had lived a few doors down from me for four years, but I’d never met her before. We got her a glass, she pulled up a chair, and before she left, we exchanged numbers so I could invite her and her husband over to dinner. I returned home warmed not just by the fire, but by the glow of fellowship that comes from feeling part of a community.
That is, of course, part of the reason people join churches, synagogues, mosques, Rotary Clubs, social clubs, neighborhood organizations, alumni organizations, fraternities, and a host of other organized communities. Human beings are herd animals, hard-wired for social connection. Very few of us feel happy if we live in isolation.
Being part of a community can also give us valuable types of strength and support. Beyond the basics of bringing food and comfort in times of hardship or loss, or lending assistance when we need it, it multiplies our ability to have impact in the world. There is strength in numbers, whether you’re arguing for a neighborhood issue in front of a city council or trying to raise money, mobilize volunteers, or effect pretty much any change in the world.
Having a supportive community around us, or behind us, can also make a huge difference in ability to persevere, believe in ourselves, and succeed at discovering and being our best and most authentic selves in the world. Numerous studies have concluded that the kids who do best at overcoming poor, broken, or economically disadvantaged backgrounds and surroundings have at least one adult in their lives who is steadfastly supportive and deeply involved and concerned with their welfare—even if that person isn’t their parent.
Going one better than that, a program in Baltimore, MD called Thread (www.thread.org)—with the slogan “The New Social Fabric” connects underprivileged and underperforming students in the public school system with a network of volunteers who create a kind of extended family for them. Students at risk of dropping out are identified in their freshman year of high school, and those who agree to enter the program are matched with up to 5 volunteers, who stay in contact with them, providing everything from help finding community resources to tutoring, rides to school and other kinds of support, for a period of 10 years. Of the students who have stayed in the program, 87% have graduated from high school, 84% have been accepted to college, and 83% have completed two or four-year degree or certificate programs. Which is to say, community is a powerful force.
Even if we’re not struggling with all the challenges those kids in Baltimore have to contend with, having a supportive community makes a huge difference in what we’re able to achieve. In my research on women’s authentic voices, finding or building supportive communities emerged as one of the four key elements—not just in helping a woman not just get her voice heard, but in finding, developing, and holding onto that voice in the first place. The power of finding kindred spirits who can help us validate what feels important or true to us, sort through our doubts and explorations, and shore us up when we encounter threats to speaking up or being heard, is hard to overstate.
What’s more, a community-oriented focus is actually an integral part of a mature, authentic sense of self and voice. It may sound counter-intuitive, but part of becoming a mature, authentic, and grounded adult is realizing that the world does not, and should not, revolve solely around ourselves. As one person I interviewed put it, “Authentic voice is about respect. Respecting yourself enough to speak, and respecting others enough to listen.” We may start by focusing on reconnecting with our core selves, but the rewards and power of an authentic voice emerge when we learn to value and care about the voices and welfare of others, as well. When we use the strength that self-knowledge gives us to commit to the community around us; to something we care about beyond ourselves.
So why the caution about community being a “double-edged sword”? Because our longing for community is so great that our desire to have it, and to “fit in” so we can reap all the supportive benefits of a particular group, can also lead us to start suppressing whatever parts of ourselves don’t fit. And the more we want to belong to a particular group, (and the more exclusive or powerful a community is), the higher that risk becomes, because the cost of being excluded, or even seen as “not really one of us” is higher.
At the extreme, that longing for a sense of belonging, and being a part of something powerful and meaningful, is one of the reasons some young people are drawn to extremist groups. But the risk of self-silencing, or over-conforming, exists for any of us, with any community we’re a part of. And that risk is higher for women who were raised to believe—consciously or unconsciously—that dissent or difference is a threat to relationships.
So what do we do about that? A couple of things, if we care about maintaining our authentic selves and voices in the world. First, we can be conscious about finding or building communities that are more aligned with what we value or care about, so we’re able to be more authentic within them. We need to find “our peeps,” as my nephew puts it, and figure out how to build communities with them. And we need to stay observant and self-aware, so we notice if we’re starting to self-silence too much and can work to change that. If we can’t speak up about what we care about in a community, it’s probably not a community in which we should invest too much energy, or for which we should hold very high expectations.
But we can also realize that it’s okay to have more than one community in our lives, and that one community may not meet the needs of all of who we are. For many years, I was an active participant in the aviation community, which is a very close-knit group that offers all kinds of support for its members. But while I valued the support that community gave me, I was also aware that the part of me that “fit” with that community was only a part of who I was. And to find kindred spirits, outlets, and support for the other aspects of myself, I needed to look elsewhere. So sometimes, we need to piece together supportive communities like a quilt, giving here, receiving there, and piecing all of it together into an ever-changing and evolving fabric of rewarding and compassionate community energy and life.
It’s a lifelong project, to be sure. And in that evolving fabric, something so simple as a group of neighbors coming together around a Halloween fire pit can be a valuable and lovely contributing square.
