Over the past several months, in response to my duties as Chairman of the Board of the Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce, my participation in Imagine Carlsbad, and several initiatives I have undertaken on behalf of clients, I have been doing a lot of thinking about the important question of, “What does it take to build a vibrant community?”
Along the way, I was reminded of Jean Vanier's thinking about a “sense of belonging.” In his wonderful book, Becoming Human, Vanier invites us to explore the question, “Where does a broader sense of belonging come from?” Important questions such as these help us to formulate our “worldview.” This word can be applied to the construction of a vibrant community and the way in which a deep sense of belonging can shape its development.
“Society,” says Vanier, “Is the place where we learn to develop our potential and become competent … Belonging, on the other hand, is the place where we can find a certain emotional security. It is the place where we learn a lot about ourselves, our fears, our apprehensions, as well as our capacity to give life; it is the place where we grow to appreciate others, to live with them, to share and work together, discovering each one's gifts and weaknesses.”
A vibrant community, from this perspective, is permeated by a relentless sense of active compassion in which people help each other to live a life worth living. For me, I think the key word is “vibrant,” since it is possible for communities to be stifling and, in some cases, painful places to live. To be vibrant in life means to be fully human – to be fully alive. If we are vibrant in our beliefs, we not only think and reflect on these ideals, but we actively pursue and live them out in the community in the breadth and depth of everyday life.
Over the past 25 years, my life's work in the international humanitarian and philanthropic community has caused me to ask, “How do people learn the things they value most?” A vibrant community is immersed in learning as a means to build others. One man, whose life has influenced mine, is the South African human rights martyr, Stephen Biko. He made the following statement that really expresses the concept of being fully alive, “I own this cattle all right, but if someone is starting a house next door, it is custom for me to have empathy with him, it is part of my cultural heritage to set him up, so that my relationship with my property is not so highly individualistic that it seeks to destroy others. I use it to build others.”
Biko created one of the most profound and powerful learning environments the world has ever seen. And although he does not specifically use the term “vibrant,” I would have to say that he embraced it as a source of design in his life's work. He did use the word “freedom” frequently, and his orientation to freedom was one that originated in giving, sharing, helping, healing, providing and caring, as well. In the end, Biko gave his life to these beliefs.
For me, Biko's life and the vibrant community he forged in dire circumstances, help to define what a hero really is. His was a life that never perishes in our hearts and minds. Biko's ability to activate his beliefs in authentic and practical ways takes us to the source of learning itself. His “classroom” was the full breadth and depth of the reality of his everyday life and his “worldview” leveraged the entire social, political and economic realities he was immersed in. It is what Vanier might describe as, “becoming fully and completely human.”
If we are to explore, seriously explore, how communities move from stifling to vibrant, then we need to actively and freely interact with the lives of real people in real situations, which includes their successes, failures, happiness, pain and suffering. We inspire a greater sense of belonging in communities by fully embracing their experiences as much as humanly possible, and finding practical ways of applying the lessons they have to teach us in our own reality.
Applying this to our great and growing community of Carlsbad, one important aspect of becoming a vibrant community is to think about it as a way of belonging that is practical and authentic. In Vanier's words, it is a way of “becoming human.” Learning, in a vibrant community is a means of selecting the best elements from all dimensions of our society, cultural, artistic, social, political and economic, in order to relentlessly inspire this sense of belonging and promote an orientation to living that, in Biko's words, “helps to build others.” Both Vanier and Biko found ways to work in collaboration with all sectors, designed business strategies to reduce poverty, built new kinds of community assets, and, even more profoundly, elevated the power of learning for all people regardless of their walk in life. High ideals for a community in pursuit of vibrance.
Along the way, I was reminded of Jean Vanier's thinking about a “sense of belonging.” In his wonderful book, Becoming Human, Vanier invites us to explore the question, “Where does a broader sense of belonging come from?” Important questions such as these help us to formulate our “worldview.” This word can be applied to the construction of a vibrant community and the way in which a deep sense of belonging can shape its development.
“Society,” says Vanier, “Is the place where we learn to develop our potential and become competent … Belonging, on the other hand, is the place where we can find a certain emotional security. It is the place where we learn a lot about ourselves, our fears, our apprehensions, as well as our capacity to give life; it is the place where we grow to appreciate others, to live with them, to share and work together, discovering each one's gifts and weaknesses.”
A vibrant community, from this perspective, is permeated by a relentless sense of active compassion in which people help each other to live a life worth living. For me, I think the key word is “vibrant,” since it is possible for communities to be stifling and, in some cases, painful places to live. To be vibrant in life means to be fully human – to be fully alive. If we are vibrant in our beliefs, we not only think and reflect on these ideals, but we actively pursue and live them out in the community in the breadth and depth of everyday life.
Over the past 25 years, my life's work in the international humanitarian and philanthropic community has caused me to ask, “How do people learn the things they value most?” A vibrant community is immersed in learning as a means to build others. One man, whose life has influenced mine, is the South African human rights martyr, Stephen Biko. He made the following statement that really expresses the concept of being fully alive, “I own this cattle all right, but if someone is starting a house next door, it is custom for me to have empathy with him, it is part of my cultural heritage to set him up, so that my relationship with my property is not so highly individualistic that it seeks to destroy others. I use it to build others.”
Biko created one of the most profound and powerful learning environments the world has ever seen. And although he does not specifically use the term “vibrant,” I would have to say that he embraced it as a source of design in his life's work. He did use the word “freedom” frequently, and his orientation to freedom was one that originated in giving, sharing, helping, healing, providing and caring, as well. In the end, Biko gave his life to these beliefs.
For me, Biko's life and the vibrant community he forged in dire circumstances, help to define what a hero really is. His was a life that never perishes in our hearts and minds. Biko's ability to activate his beliefs in authentic and practical ways takes us to the source of learning itself. His “classroom” was the full breadth and depth of the reality of his everyday life and his “worldview” leveraged the entire social, political and economic realities he was immersed in. It is what Vanier might describe as, “becoming fully and completely human.”
If we are to explore, seriously explore, how communities move from stifling to vibrant, then we need to actively and freely interact with the lives of real people in real situations, which includes their successes, failures, happiness, pain and suffering. We inspire a greater sense of belonging in communities by fully embracing their experiences as much as humanly possible, and finding practical ways of applying the lessons they have to teach us in our own reality.
Applying this to our great and growing community of Carlsbad, one important aspect of becoming a vibrant community is to think about it as a way of belonging that is practical and authentic. In Vanier's words, it is a way of “becoming human.” Learning, in a vibrant community is a means of selecting the best elements from all dimensions of our society, cultural, artistic, social, political and economic, in order to relentlessly inspire this sense of belonging and promote an orientation to living that, in Biko's words, “helps to build others.” Both Vanier and Biko found ways to work in collaboration with all sectors, designed business strategies to reduce poverty, built new kinds of community assets, and, even more profoundly, elevated the power of learning for all people regardless of their walk in life. High ideals for a community in pursuit of vibrance.