Community, Not Isolationism

When Cepia Club mentions
“community”, it means the value of what people and land have
together: A rooted, spiritual connection to time and place. Land and
people are one in many respects; separate the one from the other, and
a humble pride of knowing whence we came, WHERE we stand in values,
memory, joy, and family, fall away from being the focus of life. We
instinctively have in our humanity to help people. We help our family
despite our reason when family suffers from the members' mistakes or
misfortunes. We rely on our friends, and our neighbors, to sustain
the little spark of faith and life that makes the difficult at least
bearable. Community, where we identify our personal and family
interests for property, safety, society, and our natural rights to be
free men and women, is the place we want to belong, or the place we
eventually are accepted. It is loneliness, isolation, fear, and greed
that replace the “Platinum Rule of Humankind—that our only
purpose here is to be helpful to others—when we separate ourselves
from the otherwise Diamond Rule of Reality. That studded rule is, No
person can live sane, safe, sustained, and spiritual if we do not
accept that we need each other, of diverse types, to not only survive
well, but survive at all. It is in the community we build that can
give us hope as things collapse. That optimism in others is faith
hard to build, trust hard to earn Keep hope in our lives, in each
other, in our community, and help others do the same. It is our only
choice.