STUDY AFTER STUDY and book after book tells you that modern society has a community-support problem. People are lonelier and more isolated than ever and are expected to solve these collective and societal problems by themselves. But you don’t have to do this alone. You can do this with the support of my handy guide to community building!
Allow me to propose some ideas for how to create your own community-support network when every thread in the fabric of American society seems designed to keep you from it.
□ Search relevant terms on Google such as: “What is community?” and “What is community support?” Start a discussion group to answer these questions. Congratulations! You now have a community of people who love to argue in circles. Consider turning this into a Bible study.
□ Look up your neighbors online to learn their likes and dislikes. Give them all a gift twice a week, and make sure not to forget their birthdays. Enjoy participating in their heart events to deepen your bonds, and if you want to take a friendship a step further, you can buy a bouquet from Pierre ... hold on a minute; this is a guide to the video game Stardew Valley. Oops!
□ Be like the baby bird in P.D. Eastman’s classic children’s book Are You My Mother? and wander your neighborhood asking every person you see: “Are you my community?” If they answer “Yes,” you’re best friends now. Tell them your deepest secrets. Drop your kids off at their house with no notice when you have unexpected appointments. No one says community requires personal boundaries! (Update: I’m being told that they do, in fact, say that. Seems fake.)
□ Find an online group of like-minded people in similar life stages to you, such as parents of small children or fans of your favorite TV show. Watch as they become your dearest and most beloved friends. Realize that none of them live near you. Realize that my advice has not helped you at all. Look, man, I’m just telling you what my fellow millennials and I have been doing. If you have a problem with it, take it up with Millennial God, She Who Lives, Laughs, and Loves, Who Makes Christian Girl Autumn Manifest on Earth.
□ Building community requires clear communication, which means it’s time to make some checklists. Distribute them through your neighborhood with your opinions on your neighbors’ behavior and encourage your neighbors to do the same! What’s community without keeping each other in line? (Update: I’m being told that this is ill-advised and, in fact, the way you breed fascism at home, which our society is doing enough of already. But also ... what if you get rid of the fascists by being even more fascist than them? Ever consider that?) (Update 2: I’m being told my editors are “done with this,” which definitely means I won.)
□ What better way to build support systems than to skill-swap? Start by learning how to knit, then exchange knitted gifts for other services. Watch as your knitting makes all your community dreams come true ... but at what cost? The neighborhood starts to drown in yarn. Houses draped in yarn, trees dying underneath yarn. Yarn becomes currency. Yarn becomes food. All is yarn. Great job! You’ve built such strong community that you’re all set to survive the yarnpocalypse that you created!
Well! After that impeccable list with no problems whatsoever, I’m sure you’ll have no trouble at all building community at home. The thing about massive widespread societal issues is that every single one of them can be solved with a good list. Now get out there and wrap the town in yarn!
Beth Cooper-Chrismon was director of individual giving at Sojourners. She contains multitudes.
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