Just as a Family is a collection of individuals bonding together to create a stable and secure environment for the expression of self, a Community is a collection of individual families bonding together to form an environment secure from the depredations of others who might seek to take that which the Community values. The Family is an extension and a magnification of the individual, and in the same manner the Community is an extension of and allows for the magnification of the Family.
The Family exists so that the needs of the less capable can be met and nurtured, ideally raising the weak to a position of self-sufficiency. When it is functioning correctly, Community provides the same security for individual Families. Through a combination of individual skills, personal inclinations, and even largely uncontrollable circumstances, not all Families are going to have access to the same resources nor will the same resources be utilized with equal efficiency among different Family groups. What Community does is enable those members who are less competent or less fortunate, and even those to some degree who are unwilling to put forth the effort to be a fully participating and productive member of the Community, to enjoy the opportunity to survive and perhaps even thrive.
Each of us is ensured the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Life is the breath we draw as a consequence of being born, and no one individual has the right to deprive another of that right. Liberty is the freedom to engage in those actions that satisfy a need of the individual without infringing upon the right of another individual to do the same. The pursuit of happiness is presumably what the individual is after when exercising liberty. Some will seem to have it from birth, while others may strive a lifetime and always feel they have come up short of the goal. For most, a middle ground is the most likely place they will find themselves. Happiness is endlessly attained and relinquished; or, having attained one objective that defines happiness, another is discovered for which to strive. Pieces of one’s personal happiness goal may be held at different times though never all of the perceived pursuit at any one time. That is inherent in the pursuit of happiness: It is different for every human being, it is the privilege of every human being to strive for the attainment of happiness, but no one is guaranteed the success of reaching that idealized state.
Just as a Family will nurture their own and provide an environment in which they and grow and achieve new successes, so too must a Community of Families provide a safe haven in which all their members are free and secure to discover and explore their own paths. It is only through this process that new and unimagined benefits are returned to the Community for the benefit of, if not all, certainly many.
It is not the obligation of the Community to see that Widow Johansen down the street is cared for properly. She does make a mean batch of Christmas cookies each year that are to die for though. And does anyone remember the forty-seven years she spent teaching at the elementary school before they finally made her retire? She probably taught you, and your kids if you’ve been a member of the Community that long. Aren’t you better off for that helping hand she gave you? Is an hour to shovel her sidewalk too much to give back? A weekend spent repairing her roof to keep out the rain? Hasn’t she earned the simple pleasure of a cup of coffee with a fellow traveler once in a while, just to reassure he she’s not been forgotten or discarded? Are these comforts and protections that can truly be provided through a check from a faceless bureaucrat at the state or federal level?
That is the security and the comfort that the Family of Community offers those Families and even those individual Family members that comprise it.
No comments:
Post a Comment