Building a Community

Photo by Connor Burtis

I was asked today why we keep Montessorium in South Dakota. I didn’t really have an answer prepared to meet the enthusiasm of the question.  

I think the answer - to why we want to stay where we are or why others chose to stay in their communities - is much simpler than we often make it. 

Building a community is something like a concerted effort towards a shared sense of the betterment of the people in the place in which they find themselves.

Maybe that’s already too complicated.

Building a community is an ongoing dialogue between many different things: people, places, the environment in which they find themselves, institutions, and a multitude of other, less established, but just-as-present influences.

Building has everything to do with attitude.

How we approach things is just as important as us approaching things. Maybe it's a question of desire - of the feeling we have towards what we want to approach.

I'm not trying to make it feel as complicated as it sounds.

The phrase “building a community” is already too prescriptive for what it takes to build things together - especially shared spaces. With the right conditions, I think things can be more organic than they might seem.

That's the rub.

I have the feeling that learning how to engage discoveries no less than hardships - with a certain openness and willingness - is more agile than imposed.

At least, it could be.

Maybe "community" is just about the people. About working together. Having the opportunity to grow with people you come to respect - maybe even love.

Recognizing that I'm lucky enough to be a part of the conversation  - in an incredible "people-place-environment-building-space" - is where I always get tripped up.

I love where I live.