Hózhó and Community
Beautiful Balance
We’ll leave the light on for you - Motel 6
This week I’ve been contemplating ‘community’. I feel community is a variety of ideas and the longer I think about it the more I disagree with myself. Initially I felt community was a place to ‘belong’ both physically and emotionally. I still believe that belonging is a critical part of ‘community’, but I do not believe it is the epitome of community.
Community is circumstance, organic, and spontaneous. We don’t build it, we live in it. We’re all birds of a different feather and community is the tree we share. Community isn’t inspiration, friendship, or safety. Community is a consequence of life, the features of our communities are designed by the choices we make. If you could customize your tree maybe you’d have branches of inspiration, friendship, or safety. But the absence of those branches doesn’t negate the reality of your community.
My family moved around a lot growing up and we have a little phrase we used to say, “It’s not where you’re from, it’s where you’re at.” Community isn’t a memory or a feeling, it’s a real time, right now, interaction.
One story found its way into my consciousness this week as I pondered community, the Good Samaritan. If you’d like to read it, it’s in the Christian Bible, Luke 10:30-37. In today’s parlance we’d call this story a ‘random act of kindness’, but to me it’s community. This story is about abundance, scarcity, and service. Just to reiterate, I don’t believe we build community, we live in it. But, if your community doesn’t feel ‘right’ then exploring the relationship between abundance, scarcity, and service right now, where you are, might shift the scales.
Scarcity is everywhere. Scarcity is the reason we have billionaires, why we want to 10X our businesses, scarcity is the reason for opulence, scarcity is the reason we’re lonely. We treat scarcity like an absolute, but it’s relative and so is its counterpoint, abundance.
I remember the day we went from a two parent to a single parent household. In comparison to some, I lived in a state of parental scarcity. Around that same time a neighborhood friend of mine lost both of her parents to domestic violence, on the same night. Even with only one parent, I had so much, right?
I learned a new word this week, Hózhó. It’s a Navajo word that roughly translates to ‘beautiful balance’. Are we lonely because we’ve not honored this idea of balance in our communities? Do we push ourselves because we’re afraid of not having enough? Do we do more,to get more, and give less?
Service is how we balance our community and design a community with the characteristics of inspiration, friendship, and safety. Our acts of service don’t have to be grand or meaningful, though they may be. The most important thing is that we just do them in the moment, in the circumstance.
Do you remember those Motel 6 commercials, “We’ll leave the light on for you.” I love that. When someone needs help, they’ll look for a light.
Is your light on?
"Beautiful Balance," I love that phrase & the warm, loving image it illuminates. It certainly is worth striving for, especially during the Holidays and in "ordinary days," good times and in bad. Thank you for sharing Reginald!
Reginald, this is such a gem. The ideas of scarcity and abundance are threads that weave through my own life as well, in a conscious way, challenging me always to re-evaluate my mindset and return to gratitude. Well done, my friend!