Finding Community & Being Known

[Listen to an audio version of this blog here.]

I grew up in a small town of about 1,200 people in rural Northwestern Wisconsin. There are no stoplights or shopping centers; no freeways or light pollution. There is a Dollar General, a few churches, a few bars, and a long brick school that is the only school I set foot in from Kindergarten until the day I graduated, sometime in May, 2011.

One of my high school history teachers told us that the primary reason people enjoy small towns is the lack of people. Maybe that’s true, but people need people, so I thought that couldn’t be the whole story. I thought maybe people liked my hometown because it was predictable, or because everyone knew everyone, or because nothing hits your soft spot more than being known. To know the people you live and work around is nice and, I’d argue, necessary. Small towns aren’t the only (or best way) to be known, though. Community is everywhere, if you look for it.

In a lot of ways, it’s easier than ever to be connected to hundreds of people from around the globe. I’ve received messages from people overseas, joined online communities filled with people from all walks of life, and had the opportunity to meet unique and interesting people in real life due to connections made online. The internet, while connecting us, has had the perverse effect of making a lot of us…