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| AUTHOR SARAH RAPLEE |
This subject is important to me. I am
kicking off our blog-ver-sation about celebrating community during difficult
times by sharing some of my thoughts about community and celebrations. Please
share your thoughts and questions in the comments to keep the conversation
going. Feel free to invite your friends and neighbors to join us. I will check
in often to add my two cents worth.
Since the beginning of the pandemic I have seen
many heartwarming examples of community members coming together to help and support
one another.
There have been food drives, blood drives,
neighbors shopping for vulnerable neighbors, strangers lending a helping hand to
others in their communities, people sewing masks and gowns or 3-D printing face
shields for front-line workers.
Most people wear masks when they leave home to prevent the
spread of the virus in their communities. They wash their hands frequently and
well. When they can’t do so, they use
hand sanitizer. They are careful to cough or sneeze into a tissue or their
elbow. They make it a point to shop local, even online, as much as possible to
help the community’s businesses survive.
People do these things not only to protect
themselves and their families, but also to protect their communities. They
understand that humankind as a whole is greater than the sum of its parts. We
are all a part of something bigger than ourselves.
I’d like to share with you one of my favorite poems
that most people know by first line rather than by title.
‘No Man Is an Island’
John Donne, 17th Century English
Poet and cleric
No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the
main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were,
as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
How do we celebrate community in this strange
new reality we’re living? How do we nurture those connections and upraise their
importance in society? We get creative!!!
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New Yorker’s come together at 7pm each day to give thanks and gratitude to the city’s frontline workers fighting the coronavirus pandemic.
Adam Jeffery | CNBC
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Parades of cars decorated with signs and
balloons drive by a house on a child’s birthday. Horns honk and people sing or
call our “Happy Birthday!!!”
A young woman hosts a virtual baby shower for
her sister. Friends play games, joke around, eat cake together while apart, and
clap as each present is opened.
Assisted living staff and residents applaud a
recovering Covid patient who returns from quarantine.
People stand on their porches and balconies at
a pre-arranged time and applaud or bang on pots and pans to cheer for frontline
medical workers and first responders.
What ways have you noticed people celebrating
community since the pandemic changed things? Do you feel closer to your
communities, or do you feel lonely? Why?
