Creating Community

It's been a long and busy day today, and I'm ignoring a headache and all sorts of half finished projects (dishes, decorating, writing) in order to do a brief blog note on something interesting I did today that I didn't want to forget about.

Today we got a taste of community organizing. Way back in July at a 4th of July block party one of our neighbors was talking about wanting to put together a web site and mailing list for our extended neighborhood. We all agreed that it was a fine idea and exchanged email addresses but no one did anything about putting it together until recently, when the same guy who'd originally brought it up emailed us all and said "look, I did it!" He even made up flyers announcing the community website to pass out to everyone else in the neighborhood (which is approximately 300 or so homes) and asked for people's help to distribute them.

So the four of us took a bunch of flyers and spent a few hours this afternoon walking up and down and around the streets in our neighborhood, handing out flyers, and occasionally talking to people. Eli got a bit whiny after a street or two, but the weather was beautiful, and it felt good to be doing something helpful, creating community. It was also fun just to be out in our neighborhood, looking at all the houses, appreciating their similarities and differences, the collective and individual character of each of them. We're so blessed to live in this place, for so many reasons.