Spirit Alive: Do You Really Know Where You Live?
3/8/2016
Food for the Soul: Do You Really Know Where You Live?![]() ![]() This book looked at my community in ways that opened up new worlds to me and made me think about Portland in a whole new set of ways. It made me think: Do I really know my community as much as I think I do? Perhaps I need to do some more exploring! Maybe, as Alexandra Horowitz says in her book On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes, I have "amateur eyes," even in relationship to where I live my life. In Horowitz's words: "You missed that. Right now, you are missing the vast majority of what is happening around you. You are missing the events unfolding in your body, in the distance, and right in front of you." So even if you don't live in Portland....and even if you aren't going to be a volunteer during General Conference in May, this book poses an interesting and universal question for all of us to consider: Do you really know where you live...whether that place is Salem, Astoria, Bend or Boise....St. Helens, Heppner, Madras or Burley? Do you really know your community from a variety of vantage points? In their classic book Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community's Assets, John Kretzmann and John McKnight remind us that communities are more than their needs and problems. They are also made up of gifts and assets. In their words: "Each community boasts a unique combination of assets upon which to build its future. A thorough map of those assets would begin with an inventory of the gifts, skills and capacities of the community's residents. Household by household, building by building, block by block, the capacity mapmakers will discover a vast and often surprising array of individual talents and productive skills, few of which are being mobilized for community-building purposes." If you really want to get to know your community more deeply, there is no better place to begin than this: When you look at your community, what assets do you see? I'd venture to say that if you don't see all the levels of assets that are present there to start with, it will be difficult to say that you really know your community very well...let alone understand all the maps and stories that make it the special place that it is! Blessings on your journey, Lowell Spirit Alive is a twice a month blog and email by Rev. Lowell Greathouse, Mission and Ministry Coordinator for the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference. It seeks out where the spirit is alive in our congregations and communities. |