Maybe it’s time for forgiveness.
It is finally getting cool enough for fire pit and bonfire season.
Last year, we skipped an invitation to a bonfire get-together because they were there. The couple that were champions of the Covid measures – the vaxx and the lockdowns.
Does that mean we can’t even talk to those folks? We can’t even buy some of their salsa or kraut at the farmer’s market?
Maybe it’s time to rethink community.
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We are a fractured society
We are a fractured society. People are splitting along ideological lines, and not associating with the folks in the other camps. While many of us are in the gray areas between those camps.
It is fueled by their social media bubble. Just follow one person that leans Blue and it opens a whole different world of what they like and consume. To be fair, some die-hard Red folks I know post and repeat stuff that completely perplexes me (like Charlie Kirk conspiracies). It is like we are watching two different movies.
Everyone is drawing lines. But it brings up comments: “I don’t want to buy something from them.” (at the farmer’s market)
Like my kickoff story: “I don’t want to go to that bonfire get-together because they will be there.”
Maybe it’s time to rethink community.
Covid is the Red Line for Many (still)
For my wife, Covid was a Red Line, a betrayal, and those people can’t be trusted. This led to burned bridges and icy cold interactions, or more likely none at all.
But now when you talk to people, you find out that yes, they took at least one round of the vaxx. This gets messy very quickly.
We were at a dinner with several of our friends, including a couple that is our best friends. They were drinking, we were not. At one point, we were talking about conspiracies. My wife went to her favorite topic – Big Pharma. At that point my friend’s wife said, “We took the Covid shot. We wanted to travel.”
My wife said, “Aha!”
Her husband, my friend Dave, was talking to someone else and didn’t hear this conversation. I told him about it later and they both denied it. “Maybe your wife heard what she wanted to hear.” Well no, I heard it too.
“Maybe she (my wife) was just drunk”, he said.
My wife then talked about doubts of associating with them anymore.
Maybe it’s time to rethink community.
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The Multiple Levels of Community
Realistically, you have multiple levels of community already. They are concentric circles.
You have your Inner Circle – Family and really close friends. Includes folks that you would call at 2 AM if your water heater breaks, or if you were in an accident and you needed a ride and you can’t get ahold of your immediate family.
Then there are Friends and Allies. This includes your Mutual Assistance Group. Who you frequently communicate with, share, and trade with. You will help these folks out with clearing a tree that came down in their driveway last night during the storm. Some of those people extend into the Inner Circle.
And you have Acquaintances. People in your outer circle. You may see them at church or a get-together. You don’t know them really well but you still talk to them. It may be someone you know by name at the farmer’s market.
It’s funny, because I knew one prepper guy who inherently grouped people into these circles automatically as part of his OpSec. Needless to day, he has buckets of food, lots of guns, but very few friends.
Times are getting tough. Maybe it’s time to rethink your community.
The Other – The Invisible Enemy
In Ep. 121 – The Real Civil War is Within You, Cyprian talked about the Invisible Enemy.
For the Left, it is White Supremacy. It’s the white guy with a rifle asking, “What kind of American are you?”
This week, Trump did something that infuriated the Left.
For the Right, it’s Trans people or “illegals”.
This past week, there were No Kings protests. Did they amount to much? No. But people are infuriated anyway.
People are drawing lines in their personal relationships over ideology. In many cases, people are refusing to associate with those people,
In history, this has always been the way you treat the Other. The outsider, the different color, the different religion, the different belief.
For many, their ideology is now their Religion (with a capital “R”).
We have people calling for the military on our streets – to clunk the heads of those people. Never mind that power can be used against you by the next people in power!
We live next to the two blue-est counties in Kansas. I work in one of them.
Let’s get real. If I was really choosy, I would have a difficult and lonely life.
Maybe it’s time for forgiveness.
Not talking about completely removing your standards.
As I said, for some this is ideology. Can I still buy something at the farmer’s market from them?
Maybe it’s time for forgiveness.
But they didn’t repent!
You are called to forgiveness. Even to forgive the Samaritan that you would cross on the other side of the street to avoid.
Look, they don’t have to be in your Inner Circle!
We used to have local workshops – No One is an Expert, But We are Still Gonna Get Stuff Done workshops.
Processing chickens, making vinegar, showing newbies (and oldies) how to use crypto, bringing apples and pressing cider.
Yes, there were some weirdos that attended.
It’s OK. They can be in your community and not be in your Inner Circle.
Times are getting tough. Maybe it’s time to rethink your community.
Never before have we been more in need to be bloomscrolling, not doomscrolling.
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I still have chestnut seeds for sale at Grow Nut Trees. That’s at GrowNutTrees.com and BuyNutTrees.com.
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