Where there is not community, trust, respect, ethical behavior are difficult for the young to learn and for the old to maintain.
Interpretation
Community is essential for instilling values such as trust and respect in individuals of all ages.
This quote emphasizes the vital role that community plays in fostering essential values such as trust, respect, and ethical behavior. It suggests that without a strong sense of community, it becomes challenging for the young to learn these values and for the older generation to uphold them, indicating that social cohesion is crucial for moral development across generations.
In practice
During a community gathering to discuss youth programs.
On an important decision one rarely has 100% of the information needed for a good decision no matter how much one spends or how long one waits. And, if one waits too long, he has a different problem and has to start all over. This is the terrible dilemma of the hesitant decision maker.
The servant-leader is servant first... It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first.
Faith is the choice of the nobler hypothesis.' Not the noblest, one never knows what that is. But the nobler, the best one can see when the choice is made.
A Leader is one who ventures and takes the risks of going out ahead to show the way and whom others follow, voluntarily, because they are persuaded that the leader's path is the right one-for them, probably better than they could devise for themselves.
The only test of leadership is that somebody follows.
Leadership must first and foremost meet the needs of others.
A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.
My view is that good community management is like having good municipal government: You should be able to have dissenting opinions and so on, freedom of speech, but your grandmother should also be able to walk down the street at night without having to worry about getting mugged.
One of the marvelous things about community is that it enables us to welcome and help people in a way we couldn't as individuals. When we pool our strength and share the work and responsibility, we can welcome many people, even those in deep distress, and perhaps help them find self-confidence and inner healing.
Somehow, we have to get older people back close to growing children if we are to restore a sense of community, acquire knowledge of the past, and provide a sense of the future.
Invitation is not only a step in bringing people together, it is also a fundamental way of being in a community. It manifests the willingness to live in a collaborative way. This means that a future can be created without having to force or sell it or barter for it. When we believe that barter or subtle coercion is necessary, we are operating out of a context of scarcity and self-interest, the core currencies of the economist.
Christian community is the place where we keep the flame of hope alive among us and take it seriously so that it can grow and become stronger in us.
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