by Rita
For many years we have heard that the phrase "It takes a village to raise a child" is an old African proverb. In reality, no one knows for sure the origin of the phrase. What I do know is that a "village" can indeed help you raise a child, help you enjoy life, help you through the rough times, help you feel loved and it can even help you get elected president of the United States. (Wouldn't you agree President-elect Obama?)
I feel truly blessed to be a member of The Village Connection (a formal name we recently adopted) which consists of four families that have been connected for more than 25 years. Over the years the parent members of our village have together been school mates (high school and college), celebrated marriages, shared parenting tips, rejoiced in career achievements, grieved over the loss of loved ones, relaxed on mini-vacations, improved our golf games, and yes assumed we had parental authority and love for all the village children.
The Village children, several of whom we must now consider to be adults (where did the time go?), have supported each other and the parents in so many ways and will surely continue the legacy of our village. They are a delight to know and contain so many good qualities, that they are too numerous to list.
I firmly believe that our village has made our collective lives better. And, I believe that if there were more families connected together in their own villages, the world would be a better place and amazing things would be achieved.
The Obama's have acknowledged on several occasions the important role their close-knit group of friends (their Village) has played in their lives. One could even argue that their village was a significant factor in winning the election.
When you have a group of friends that will support and believe in you, no matter what, and that you can trust them to give you wise counsel and honest feedback, as you pursue your destiny; then yes, I believe you too can get to the highest office in the land.
My suggestion to those without a village, start one now!
hope, imagination, and action
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“No child should be permitted to grow up without exercise for imagination.
It enriches life for him. It makes things wonderful and beautiful.” — Mark
Twain...
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4 comments:
I don't think any of us would argue the value of our village. Our village, however, evolved very naturally as a result of established relationships. As a matter of fact, I would venture to say we had a village before we actually realized it. We just looked up one day and found ourselves bound by mutual values and a genuine love for one another. We never had a "village strategy". I guess my question is, can a group just wake up one day and decide to start a village? I don't know because I found myself in a village before I realized wht was happening.
Papa Stan, you make an excellent point. Generally speaking a village will just evolve naturally. I would hope however that there could be an intentional creation of a "village." For example, if I moved to a new city and found, say through my church, a few like-minded families, I think it would be possible to encourage and nurture the village concept with those families. Of course, the bond would not initially be as deep, but over time similar outcomes could be achieved. At least I hope that would be possible.
I agree with Papa Stan, I'm not sure you can plan this sort of thing. I personally feel extremely fortunate and blessed to have 3 sets of families outside of my own that I feel close to, but this is not the norm, and I feel like it would be misleading to suggest that others' villages will come about like ours did. I mean, how would you know that 25+ years ago that today you guys would a)still be friends b) have kids that are this close (like brothers/sisters), etc.,
So God truly had His hand in this and if others are like our village, then that is great, I'm sure the world needs more. But it would be hard to start up something like this intentionally, when in my opinion, ours wasn't to begin with. Now over the years have we made every effort to coordinate times for us to be together, yes, but I think the real question that relates to this is: Which was first? - The chicken or the egg? And by that I mean, did we start hanging out together and being invested in and enriching each others lives and that is how the village started? Or is it that we claimed we were a village and only then did we begin to hang out and become invested in each others lives? Just a thought.
I know I'm late to the conversation, but everybody's brought up some very good points. However, I would venture to say that we each belong to several villages. Some of them, like my church, have been been cultivated over a long period of time. Others, like my college friends, are just forming.
The thing that sets this village apart is the fact that at some point we began intentionally applying the village philosophy. Like Momma Rita said it's that intentional application that we ought to begin applying to our other villages.
I believe village growth is viral. You all have passed it to us, we'll pass it to our friends and our kids. Our kids will pass it to their friends and their kids and so on and so forth. It will take time, but that's how I think the global village movement will catch on.
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