Holly and I finished the DVD last night. At the end, they highlighted a few of the people/families in their 21st Century life and got their reflections on how their time living in 1628 had affected their lives afterward.
Their education of "community" proved striking. My least favorite person of the whole project made a telling observation about the difference between 21st Century life. To paraphrase, if you have an idealogical problem or disagreement with somebody in the 21st Century, it's so easy to to just stop having any relationship with that person. In 1628, when building a colony, community is paramount to actual survival.
Something about this fact seems frighteningly profound.
This June, Holly and I will have lived in our house for 3 years. We live on a relatively quiet, nice little street. People are pretty friendly and we wave to a number of people regularly. But I think I only know about 3-4 names. We've made a couple feeble attempts to introduce ourselves to new people as they've moved into the neighborhood, but I think we've only actually been in one other house on the street. All this, and we're the only people who've made any attempt.
How can this be changed? Can it?
As I sit and try to distill all the endless ramifications of this concept, all of these clues pop up: red state/blue states, liberal/conservative, traditional/contemporary/emergent...
The ebbing felt-need for community necessitates churches, bars and AA meetings. But how many of your actual neighbors do you spend time with in those communities?
This is just one of the things that really bothers me and I get overwhelmed trying to figure out something that can be done.
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