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Health & Fitness

Blog: What Community Means, and What Happens When a Community Becomes Mean?

The second realization was that communities could be both "good" and "bad" (I cringe as I use those terms but can't think of any others).

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I attended a World Café last Sunday. It was held at the (love the mosaic!), and was a conversation on defining community, why it is needed and how we create it. For me, this type of exercise is exhilarating. I thrive in this type of supportive and thoughtful group.

Peter Bruckner spoke first, whose art, jewelry, storytelling and marionette magic all graced my Earth Mart and thrilled our customers of all ages. As always, Peter spoke eloquently and effectively, filling my head with the vision of how we can shape our reality. Moving beyond the "mine," to the "our." The question I am still pondering, “Why would I take care of your river?” and imagine the difference if it were instead, “How do we take care of our river?”

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Joel Bartlett spoke next, explaining how co-housing can create sustainable community, the benefits and efficiencies of intentional living communities. As a member, I have heard about co-housing many times, and know that Joel will be successful in developing Altair.

The last “speaker” included several participants who told their stories of “healthy” communities they had experienced.

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From there we split into groups to further delve into this question of community. I came to several truly profound realizations. First, that for me, what really creates community is when it is synergistic. A group of people who happen to be in the park at the same time are not a community, but that same group coming together at the park to perform on stage or play a few innings of softball, are a community.

The second realization was that communities could be both “good” and “bad” (I cringe as I use those terms but can’t think of any others). My definition of the first would be a community that looks outward, which fosters growth and stability. The second would be a community that is self-centered and inward, or as I put it, one that eats its young.

I am inspired by several communities I belong to. One I joined on Sept. 3 in Washington, DC, when I was arrested with 1,252 others at the first Tar Sands Action. Every day I am met by kind or challenging words on my Facebook page. My “friends” are a motley bunch, and are sprinkled around the world. In the past, I had been a part of the second kind of community, and just recently, have seen another example of what happens when a community becomes mean.

In Phoenixville, we were granted a small area dubbed the Children’s Plaza. The Kiwanis generously donated funds to put in a fountain and has hosted several concerts and events there.  Suddenly, one day, the benches were removed. Evidently some “businesses” had been “complaining” about “vandals and gangs." What?

I made a call and was told that it had to do with litter. A point which was echoed by others. The benches had been removed due to litter and the fountain being damaged. I thought this was extremely odd, since at the last Parks and Recreation meeting I had brought up the litter issue, but it had to do with the litter in front of a certain bar that has a habitual problem, especially with cigarette butts, and on several days glass, blood and vomit. A problem I have been bringing up for years. And yet there is no talk of removing that problem, why is that?

Do we, as a community value a bar more than our teens? Why would we chase off our teens? I overheard a police officer telling two young girls, one of whom was pregnant, that they should go “hang out in the woods." I was outraged at that.

Now before my resident trolls start in on how I am just some lefty liberal trippy-dippy treehugger who doesn’t understand how the real world works, hear me out. When I had Earth Mart I welcomed teens, especially on First Fridays. Yes, they did some stupid things, like whoever drew the penis on the wall of the children’s play area at the top of the stairs, but in general, they were well-behaved, and grateful.

More than once I was thanked by groups of teens who told me I was the “only store owner who did not chase them out for not buying anything." They would come and sit, talk, play games, and often did buy something to eat or drink.

Now I am not saying that it was not “teens” who vandalized the fountain, or that they were not littering; I am sure there are some who did. But has anyone asked them if they would clean up the mess? Did our community even consider that some of these kids may have nowhere else to go? Aren’t we the village who is supposedly helping to raise these children? It seems to me it is often those who proclaim they are a community loudest, who fail to grasp the true meaning of what community is.

I still wonder what the Phoenixville Community Development Corporation is doing about community development, have we seen a mission statement yet? A plan? Action steps? How are they building community? The development part we are hearing plenty about, but I have not heard a word about community development, only real estate. They are also a very “closed” community, not welcoming questions or inviting the public into meetings, very odd behavior for a “community” development organization if you ask me, which I grant, no one did.

During the World Café, another self-proclaimed community came up several times, the nearby Waldorf school. I was surprised when several people brought up the school as an example of a “closed” or “bad” community.

For the record, I have had experience with the Waldorf community. And not a positive one. Since removing my daughter I have been shocked at the blatant disrespect and rudeness shown to both me and my daughter. It is an obvious example of what happens when a community becomes mean.

I have seen both children and faculty bullying other children. Parents have tried to bully me, as did the staff. And when I would not allow it, they turned their back on me, my daughter and my business. Suddenly invitations stopped coming, and the explanation? “It was too difficult." I bet it was. Very difficult to see my daughter thrive and excel, and impossible to reconcile to the lies they had to believe in order to protect the school at all costs.

So for me, I’ll add delusional to the attributes of a “bad” community.

Just as the business owners seem to want to paint the teens as the “bad” guy in the litter situation, the Waldorf school seems to accept a “blame the children” approach. And maybe that is the most obvious difference between what community means, and what happens when a community becomes mean. It is how we treat the children.

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