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how do you create community? (a poem)

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how do you create community? (a poem)

Tad Hargrave
Jan 2, 2023
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how do you create community? (a poem)

tadhargrave.substack.com

How to you create community?

I don’t know.

A hundred ways.

A thousand ways.

But,

how do you kill community?

I can tell you one thing

sure to do the job.

Be self-sufficient.

Always have enough.

Always have it together.

Always be a giver.

Always have all the tools you need.

Never need to borrow a sewing needle.

Never need a cup of sugar.

Never tell anyone you're breaking down.

Never need anyone.

Your pride,

your insistence on competency,

your unwillingness to be a burden,

on us

when it is the proper time for you to collapse

may be the end of us all.

Knowing what time it truly is,

or knowing how to know the time at all,

you,

needing our help,

being unable to continue without it,

you,

not knowing

how to do everything,

creates the occasion

for the village to reconstitute itself

and know itself again.

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how do you create community? (a poem)

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7 Comments
David Jurasek
Writes RELATIONSHIP DOJO
Jan 2Liked by Tad Hargrave

Could not have phrased it more simply and succinctly...

I hear the refrains often from newer men in our community...

I don’t want to burden you...

I’m fine. Came to support YOU all...

Good for some to own the strength but such a barrier...

Reminds me often how my neediness is the crack in the bowl that lets the light in and out... so it can be mended by others and mutually filled by us both...

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Barbara Brown
Jan 2

Thank you for such a clear assessment. Now I know better how to proceed.

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