Words That Create Community and Connection
BY ARLENE HARDER, MA, MFT
Explore a quotation, affirmation, fact, phrase or question that you feel helps create community and connection.
We were born to unite with our fellow men, and to join in community with the human race.
Cicero
Today we are faced with the preeminent fact that, if civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships . . . the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together, in the same world, at peace.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
The American city should be a collection of communities where every member has a right to belong. It should be a place where every man feels safe on his streets and in the house of his friends. It should be a place where each individual's dignity and self-respect is strengthened by the respect and affection of his neighbors. It should be a place where each of us can find the satisfaction and warmth which comes from being a member of the community of man. This is what man sought at the dawn of civilization. It is what we seek today.
Lyndon B. Johnson
Entering the world as tiny dependent creatures, we need others in order to survive. However, when we enter the teenage years and discover options far beyond the limited world we've known, we can develop the illusion that we are independent and can assume that how we live is no one's business but our own.
However, for most of us, there eventually comes a day, perhaps far into our twenties, thirties, and beyond, when we recognize our inter-dependence because, as Sandra Day O'Connor has said, "We don't accomplish anything in this world alone . . . and whatever happens is the result of the whole tapestry of one's life and all the weavings of individual threads from one to another that creates something." Even when we know we are inter-dependent, however, we may only consider ourselves part of a community comprised of people who look, act, and think like we do.
Yet in an increasingly pluralistic society, we must find the will and the strength to build community, to join our voices in celebration of humanity, and to support and heal one another. Unless there is freedom and justice for everyone, unless we realize we are not indispensible, we will remain tiny boats adrift on a vast, storm-tossed sea without the healing companionship we all need.
© 1999, Revised 2006, Arlene Harder, MA, MFT |
