Highlights from Chapters 1 & 2 of The Abundant Community

Throughout Lent, I am reading The Abundant Community by John McKnight and Peter Block.  Here are some of the highlights from chapters 1 & 2

“The essential promise of a consumer society is that satisfaction can be purchased.  This promise runs so deep in us that we have come to take our identity from our capacity to purchase.  To borrow from Descartes, ‘I shop, therefor I am.’  This dependency on shopping is not just about things; it includes the belief that most of what is fulfilling or needed in life can be bought—from happiness to healing, from love to laughter, from rearing a child to caring for someone at the end of life.”  Block/McKnight, pg 9

“ In our effort to find satisfaction through consumption, we are converted from citizen to consumer, and the implications of this are more profound than we realize.  This is clearest when we explore two particular consequences of a consumer society:  its effect on the function of the family and its impact on the competence of the community.” (pg 9)

“In a consumer economy, the functions of a competent community are removed from family and community and provided by the marketplace; they are designed to be purchased.  We now depend on systems to provide our basic functions.  This means that the space that the family and community were designed to fill has been sold and is now empty.” (pg 10)

Statements representing the citizen way:  “We know our neighbors.  We are surrounded with social support; we take care of each other.  We have wisdom, which we call common sense.  We have self-taught skills, family taught.  We are storytellers.  I will tell you my story.  Our faith is not based upon what churches teach.  We have discovered a way not to be lonely.  We know how to do without.  Make ends meet.  Made do.  We do this together.  We take care of our own.  There are no foster kids, only grandmothers and cousins.”  (pg 15)

“ The statements representing the citizen way are from people for whom the family and neighborhood is the place where their social life takes form.  They are not dependent on systems or a managed existence for their satisfaction.  They have become proficient in associational life.” (pg 16)

“Our communities are abundant with the resources we need for the future.  It is the awakening of families and neighborhoods to these resources that is needed.” (pg 18)

Communities/neighborhoods address the following needs: safety and security, health, well-being of children, environment and land, enterprising economy, food, care.

“An abundant community and a fully functioning family is one that knows how to handle deviance, whether it is our difficult children or adults on the margin.” (pg 40)