Entertainment. Most of us think of it in terms of television, smartphones, laptops and iPads. At least this is how many incorporate it into daily living. In fact, it would not take very long to look around and find toddlers, children and adolescents glued to electronic devices. However, the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recent study findings warn that this habit can be detrimental to the development of young children having too much exposure to these devices. To help combat this, State of the Re:Union contributor John McKnight of Abundant Community offers some great and easy ideas on how we can “unplug” and get  back to the origins of entertainment. To read the original text in its entirety, click here.

It may be that most of us are not alarmed by “tube-nurtured” children because we think that what is happening is entertainment — innocent and pleasurable. Therefore, we don’t recognize the fact that the tube is replacing play and genuine entertainment created by children, families and communities. In fact, the word “entertainment” is derived from the Old French which meant “hold together.” Its essence is about relationships between people rather than people and “tubes.”

There is an interesting monograph first printed in 1928 titled “Baraboo 1850’s to 1860’s Pioneer Festivities.” It describes how people entertained themselves in the decade of the 1850’s in the small Wisconsin town of Baraboo. The monograph documents entertainments produced by the residents including (these are just a few in many depictions):

•    Fourth of July celebrations that went on all day and evening.
•    New Year’s day celebrated as a time of gift giving and calling on neighbors and friends.
•    Berrying parties and apple-bees where everyone joined together in forests and orchards.
•    Afternoon tea parties.
•    Public dances of every kind, with local musicians providing the music.
•    Village gatherings to watch the dancing of Native Americans who still lived in the area.
•    Pound parties where everyone attending brought a pound of food to be shared with a poor family.
•    Festivals throughout the community held frequently to raise money for good causes.
•    Park festivities where public gatherings of every kind took place in the village.

This is a history of entertainment, festivity and play that was produced by everyday people in so many ways that most days had at least one entertainment. People knew how to create activities that would be fun, inspiring, social and informative. In that sense they were capable of creating a community’s enjoyment.

In a “tube-focused” community, many people have lost the capacity to produce an enjoyable life. Instead they are consumers of commercial “entertainment.” And because so many of them have never engaged in creating and participating in entertainment, there’s no need for us to develop our talents. We pay to watch people with talent on a tube. And everyone knows that “tubing” has nothing to do with a festive life. Instead it is a sad retreat from the joy of using our abilities to celebrate each other by coming together in a thousand exciting, happy, supportive, friend-making, talent-displaying ways.

So, supposing your 2012 New Year’s resolutions included personal leadership in creating an enjoyable neighborhood. We can begin by recognizing that we still know how to celebrate weddings, birthdays, graduations and holidays with our relatives. The people of Baraboo in the 1850’s have created a community celebration menu for us to build upon. We can join together with our neighbors to have gardening, tea, quilting and book parties. We can open our houses of worship to all kinds of neighborhood celebrations. We can create opportunities to dance together, sing together, make music together and raise money together. We can join in enjoying the talents of our children and debates of public issues.

In all these ways, we can become a real community where we know everyone by name and experience their unique talents. Best of all, we can become real neighbors celebrating life together rather than living isolated lives in houses where electric tubes create a counterfeit life for us and our families.

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John McKnight is an expert on communities. An Ohio native who currently lives near Chicago, he has spent decades organizing communities and researching them, primarily in the Windy City itself. In the course of his career, he mobilized neighborhoods during the civil rights movement, wrote several books about community development, created a center for urban affairs at Northwestern University, and even taught the current President a thing or two about advocacy. (Yes, it’s true: way back when, a young and eager Barack Obama interned at McKnight’s training program for community organizers in southeast Chicago). If that’s not enough, he recently co-authored a book called “The Abundant Community: Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods.”

State of the Re:Union will be featuring pieces from John McKnight and Peter Block of Abundant Community every other Monday.

State of the Re:Union conveys some more gems of wisdom regarding five basic resources to make community better – a part of Abundant Community’s “Capacity Building Beyond Community Services” series by John McKnight.

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You can watch the video of John McKnight clicking here or read the transcript below. Afterwards, we would love to hear any additional resources you consider to be valuable assets to bettering communities. Use the comment box below to tell us about your gems of wisdom.

We could tell from reading those stories that the people used five basic resources whenever they made things better. There were five things there that…that needs finders didn’t know about, right? And those five things were first that in the stories of how things were better, always the principal resource was the local residents, and their gifts and their skills and their capacities, not their deficits, problems, and needs.

And then the second resource was and is the local clubs, groups, organizations, and associations, the smaller face-to-face groups where the members do the work and they’re not paid, although they may have a paid member like a pastor or an organizer or a secretary, but basically they’re local people who come together to do things and they do all kinds of things from form choirs to block clubs to veterans organizations. There are just hundreds of local, we call them associations. And these are groups of individuals. These associations multiply their gifts and capacities.

And the third resource that’s there is some local institutions, some businesses, some not for profits, and some government institutions. There’s usually a school or a park or a library, or maybe even a police station.

The fifth [sic] resource is the land of the neighborhood, because that physical space, everything on top of it, everything under it, the land itself. Those are all resources that people often use. A vacant lot can become a community garden.

Ah, and then the last resource is the fact that people were constantly sharing things, bartering, trading, exchanging and buying and selling things locally.

So those five resources we called assets and said that it is basic to understand that community building starts with the use of those five assets. And if you start by saying what we know is what’s wrong, what’s missing, then you won’t be community building. What you’ll be is injecting neighborhoods with professionals, social workers, outsiders, university researchers.

And so that idea that there are local assets has spread over the last twenty years since we published the initial book. The initial book we published is called Building Communities from the Inside Out. That’s not to say there isn’t a place for outside resources, but you have to start with what you have and then move to an understanding of what you need after you know what you have. So that’s the ABCD Asset-Based Community Development story in brief.

One of the things about outside resources is that the people who are providing them aren’t going to stay, but equally, if not the more important thing, is they do a needs survey, they say what’s wrong with the neighborhood, they go to government, they go to foundations, they go to United Way. They get paid, they’re not from the neighborhood, to do something, hopefully, that will make things better, and then they leave with the money.

Well, the main thing, if there is something that people are short on in these neighborhoods it’s money. But the needs… the needs process, produces money for people who aren’t there. And the unusual thing is that if funders wanted to know what’s the main thing you could do to help along these neighborhoods, if we call them low-income neighborhoods, is focus on income, not services, not interventions in individuals’ lives, but supportive economy.

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John McKnight is an expert on communities. An Ohio native who currently lives near Chicago, he has spent decades organizing communities and researching them, primarily in the Windy City itself. In the course of his career, he mobilized neighborhoods during the civil rights movement, wrote several books about community development, created a center for urban affairs at Northwestern University, and even taught the current President a thing or two about advocacy. (Yes, it’s true: way back when, a young and eager Barack Obama interned at McKnight’s training program for community organizers in southeast Chicago). If that’s not enough, he recently co-authored a book called “The Abundant Community: Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods.”

State of the Re:Union will be featuring pieces from John McKnight and Peter Block of Abundant Community every other Monday.

In this video interview, Capacity Building Beyond Community Services, the topic is the meaning of “community” and “neighborhood.”

You can watch the video here, or read the transcript below. Then use the comment section below to let us know what your definition of community and neighborhood is.

Postscript on The Therapeutic Neighborhood

Today’s post from Abundant Community contributor John McKnight revisits the Clearness Committee and how it helped one woman’s challenge in deciding treatment for a life-threatening disease. She explains her experience and interaction throughout the process and how it saved her life. (To read original The Therapeutic Neighborhood excerpt, click here. For State of the Re:Union’s post synopsis, click here.)

“The Clearness Committee is not a cure-all,” says Parker Palmer in the excerpt from A Hidden Wholeness we posted recently in The Therapeutic Neighborhood. “But for the right person, with the right issue, it is a powerful way to rally the strength of community around a struggling soul, to draw deeply from the wisdom within all of us.”

My sister-in-law, Mary, was at Quaker study center Pendle Hill for months after an operation for a brain tumor. Here is her reflection on her experience with a Clearness Committee:

“Clearness Committees are made up of people called together to support individuals, couples, or groups in making decisions.

“I called a Clearness Committee to help me decide about my ‘next step’ when I was at Pendle Hill, the Quaker Center for Study and Contemplation.

“I asked seven people to come together with me and offer support, raise questions, give suggestions, and feedback.  These were people in the Pendle Hill community who I felt could give me helpful input from their varying perspectives.

“These people didn’t tell me what to do, but helped me to become clearer about my future direction.

“I did preparation for the meeting by answering some pre-clearness questions–such as about my personal history with relevance to the decision to be made, my commitments, sources of support, goals, and what was holding me back from various options.  I gave this background information to the committee members prior to our group meeting.

“They met with me for several hours one evening. After they brainstormed my strengths, they asked questions, raised concerns, and offered me feedback.

“By the end of the evening I received important insights as to how to proceed, and greater clarity about my future, which at that time was to return to Pendle Hill for another three-month session. Ultimately that decision led me to Ohio. . . .

“There were many other practical decisions that had to be made in the outside world to support my decision, but it was in the Clearness Committee that the direction for my future was made clear to me and supported.

“My reaction to the Clearness Committee?  It was an invaluable experience of the thoughtful pushing and caring of friends in community.

“What is unique?  In response to my desire for clarity, I reached out to my community for suggestions and feedback.

“What do they do that professional counselors can’t do?  As side-by-side members of the Pendle Hill Community, they knew me from various personal perspectives, and offered on-going caring support rather than being outsider professionals.  The dimension of sitting as a group in silence for guidance and discernment was a valuable part of the process.”

Clearly, for Mary, the “clearness” process was the work of a therapeutic community with profound meaning.

It is quite easy to lose track of one’s personal sense of understanding with so much static coming in at a rapid-fire pace daily. Perhaps the Quakers have hit upon something that is often overlooked or dismissed as being too invasive or quirky. For people such as Mary, not only does it make sense, but instills an inner peace and strength truly knowing that she never has to go through this alone. I believe this knowledge in and of itself is therapeutic. Yes, there are professionals who can assist in discerning the best actions for an individual, but is a more austere clinical setting the best way to begin the healing process? For some it might be, but who is to say that works for all? What about you, if you had a potentially life changing decision, what scenario would you prefer, and why? We would love to hear what you have to say, so send your answers our way.

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John McKnight is an expert on communities. An Ohio native who currently lives near Chicago, he has spent decades organizing communities and researching them, primarily in the Windy City itself. In the course of his career, he mobilized neighborhoods during the civil rights movement, wrote several books about community development, created a center for urban affairs at Northwestern University, and even taught the current President a thing or two about advocacy. (Yes, it’s true: way back when, a young and eager Barack Obama interned at McKnight’s training program for community organizers in southeast Chicago). If that’s not enough, he recently co-authored a book called “The Abundant Community: Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods.”

State of the Re:Union will be featuring pieces from John McKnight and Peter Block of Abundant Community every other Monday.

State of the Re:Union contributor John McKnight from Abundant Community explores the communal approach once used by Quakers that still holds validity for problem solving today, as explained by Parker Palmer.

If you have a deeply troubling personal problem, where do you turn?  To a cleric? A psychologist? A counselor? A therapist? Each is a hired professional with different approaches to our dilemmas. But suppose they didn’t exist. Where would you turn? What about going to a group of your neighbors?  They might be more helpful than the professionals.

We can learn how to use this neighborly wisdom from the Quakers. In the 1660s, universities weren’t turning out certified personal problem solvers, and the Quakers had no clergy to turn to.  Nonetheless, their members often faced personal crises and suffering.  In response, the Quakers recognized that the local community had unusual powers to help its members through difficult times.  Relying on the wisdom of their community rather than paid professionals, they created “Clearness Committees.”

The Clearness Committee: A Communal Approach to Discernment

Behind the Clearness Committee is a simple but crucial conviction: each of us has an inner teacher, a voice of truth, that offers the guidance and power we need to deal with our problems. The function of the Clearness Committee is not to give advice or “fix” people from the outside in, but to help people remove the interference so that they can discover their own wisdom from the inside out.

If we do not believe in the reality of inner wisdom, the Clearness Committee can become an opportunity for manipulation. But if we respect the power of the inner teacher, the Clearness Committee can be a remarkable way to help someone name and claim his or her deepest truth.

The Clearness Committee’s work is guided by some simple but crucial rules and understandings. Among them, of course, is the rule that the process is confidential. When it is over, committee members will not speak with others about what was said and, equally important, they will not speak with the focus person about the problem unless he or she requests a conversation. (To read the excerpt in its entirety, click here.)

The premise of this exercise is to assist the focus person – or person with the issue – in finding clarity that might lead to resolution of the problem. The “problem” can be as simple as “should I take this new job?” An important part of the process in choosing the Clearness Committee is to find five or six diverse people (age, background, gender, etc.) to act as committee members. This will ensure a well-rounded audience to help discern the issue at hand. This committee is there to listen and ask pertinent, honest and open-ended questions pertaining to the issues of the “focus person.” That is all. It is a time when members of a community can come together to aide a neighbor in need without judgment or advice. Just good ol’ understanding.

Once the meeting starts, all of the idle chit-chat and joking are set aside, and focus solely belongs to the focus person. He/She goes over three main points: the issue at hand, potential influencing factors of the issue, and what potential problems could arise from the issue. All focus must be kept on the problem. Listening and talking. Really. That’s it. This means absolutely no advice and no amateur psychoanalysis. Keeping an open mind and not interjecting personal stories, anecdotes or advice is a must in order for this Clearness Committee to work. And this isn’t a time for finding out the “scoop” on your neighbor. It is also not a time used for grilling or cross-examination. Questioning should be relaxed, gentle, humane. A machine-gun fire of questions makes reflection impossible and leaves the focus person feeling invaded rather than evoked. And lastly, it is important for everyone to know that the Clearness Committee is not a “cure all” for the problem, nor is it intended to “fix” the focus person, so there should be no sense of let-down if the focus person does not have his or her problems “solved” when the process ends. And, a good clearness process does not end—it keeps working within the focus person long after the meeting is over.

Imagine actually organizing and achieving a Clearness Committee meeting in your neighborhood. Do you think having your own “Clearness Committee” can have helped lessen the nerve-racking pain of important decisions? Does your neighborhood have what it takes to participate in a meeting like this? Is there something to the Quakers’ methodology that can work? Or have we become too isolated as a community for this to happen? What are your thoughts and ideas? We want to know.

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John McKnight is an expert on communities. An Ohio native who currently lives near Chicago, he has spent decades organizing communities and researching them, primarily in the Windy City itself. In the course of his career, he mobilized neighborhoods during the civil rights movement, wrote several books about community development, created a center for urban affairs at Northwestern University, and even taught the current President a thing or two about advocacy. (Yes, it’s true: way back when, a young and eager Barack Obama interned at McKnight’s training program for community organizers in southeast Chicago). If that’s not enough, he recently co-authored a book called “The Abundant Community: Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods.”

State of the Re:Union will be featuring pieces from John McKnight and Peter Block of Abundant Community every other Monday.

Over the past few days, it has been hard to dodge reminders about the tragedy of 9/11 and the stories of lives, families and communities that were ripped apart. It has been hard for some to overcome the harrowing time of our nation’s struggle, but for many others, it has given inspiration in remembering just what family means and why it is so important to our existence as a community. State of the Re:Union turns to John McKnight of Abundant Community to bring the meaning of family back into focus.

One day, when my mother was in her 70’s, she told me a story about how things had changed in her small town since she was a girl. She said,

“When I was a girl, things were very different. When we were feeling ill, my grandmother knew what would cure almost anything and all of us turned to her for healing advice.

When there was a dispute or trouble between family members, we turned to Uncle Charlie who listened, understood, and counseled us. He would remind us that our family’s sticking together was the most important thing we had.

Most important things I learned were from our neighbors and family. School helped, but the way I really came to understand the world was from the folks around me.

Whenever the family gathered, each of the kids was expected to display some talent for the group – singing, reciting a poem, doing acrobatics, playing a musical instrument. We didn’t think of it as entertainment. It was the enjoyment of sharing our gifts.

Everyone had backyard gardens and we had wonderful get-togethers when we picked and canned the food that got us through the winter.

My dad and brother built our house.

Today, that seems to have all faded away. Now, people use only doctors when they are ill and grandmothers are ignored.

People go to lawyers and psychologists when there are problems and Uncle Charlie is ignored.

Now, people think schools raise a child so children ignore their neighbors and their family.

Now, people enjoy television and movies and they ignore the gifts and talents of the people around them.

Food comes from the supermarket and McDonald’s and the backyard is for grass. There are no wonderful canning parties anymore.

Houses are built by architects and contractors who never make a house that really fits a family like the one my dad and brother built.”

I think my mother was reminding me that her community was a productive place.

I think my mother was reminding me that her community was the producer of much of its health, problem solving, education, talent, food and housing. It was a productive place. Now, she observes a community made up of consumers who believe that health is in a hospital, problems are the domain of lawyers and therapists, education is produced by schools, enjoyment is produced by electronic media, food is provided by supermarkets and a home is built by professionals.

Hidden within my mother’s observations is the fact that she is describing the loss of basic functions belonging to families and neighborhoods. Most have become incompetent in terms of doing the work of families and neighborhoods. The cost of this incompetence is families and neighborhoods that have no real function.

No group persists when it has no reason to be together. Therefore, if families perform no functions we can predict that they will fall apart.

We delude ourselves if we think our high divorce rates are caused by interpersonal problems and disagreements. It’s not that people are not getting along, it is that they don’t need each other because they have no functions. They are just isolated, unproductive, dependent consumers who happen to live in the same house.

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John McKnight is an expert on communities. An Ohio native who currently lives near Chicago, he has spent decades organizing communities and researching them, primarily in the Windy City itself. In the course of his career, he mobilized neighborhoods during the civil rights movement, wrote several books about community development, created a center for urban affairs at Northwestern University, and even taught the current President a thing or two about advocacy. (Yes, it’s true: way back when, a young and eager Barack Obama interned at McKnight’s training program for community organizers in southeast Chicago). If that’s not enough, he recently co-authored a book called “The Abundant Community: Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods.”

State of the Re:Union will be featuring pieces from John McKnight and Peter Block of Abundant Community every other Monday.