We propose that a most BASIC individual empowerment in our country MUST begin with an approach that restores the lost sense of community provided by faith, family, and mutual support, at least for those who desire freedom and who refuse to be limited, defined, or controlled by the present-day shot-callers in our civilization.
Most approaches to empowerment, which is you fulfilling your own God-given scroll of destiny and purpose and God’s best for your life, are either too esotoric and filled with buzzwords and catch-phrases or they lean on massive scale change through some form of collective activism. What they lack are both practical methods and attainable means. Citing some notion of getting in the flow of some energy or will of the universe is as useless to workaday people as wishing somehow to remake a city or country in your own image through collective action.
We aren’t arguing that none of these things are useful at all. They can be, and they can enhance and expand upon your own efforts to become empowered. But we are at “empowerment 101” here, not advanced empowerment where you want to dig deeper into your soul or where you want to help many other people find the same level of empowerment for themselves.
When I was in Mexico visiting friends who are like kin and saw how they approach life, and even how some live, mostly in close connection to an inner circle of people who have each other’s backs, I witnessed a lot of what I wrote about in terms of empowerment. Empowerment begins with an inner circle of people who care for each other as kin, as if the good of one is sought by all, and yet nobody’s individuality is subordinated to some weird collectivist hippy cult commune.
The end state of this stage for many may be something like I saw in Mexico, and which exists all over the world, basically a “family” estate which many members live in but which all resort to frequently for social and other purposes as the physical hub of their inner circle.
If we broaden the concept of family to include an innner circle of around 20-30 adult relatives and friends who are like family, with the nuclear family of a mom and dad with their children at the core, we begin to see what family can mean. Family is far more than a mom and dad with their children and dependents, and maybe an older parent who lives with them, but a collection of enough adult members so that most hazards and burdens can be handled internally and most needs can be meet, even if a few members are totally disabled or temporarily down and out.
The destruction of extended family groups like this, again not all members are related by blood or marriage, is a necessary precursor to creating economic and other forms of disempowerment because it makes the individual or a married couple and their children easy prey to almost any eocnomic or other pressure. The net effect is that you can’t pursue your dream, your vision, or your self-interest effectively outside of the limits, which others, even slightly more wealthy and/or influential people, set for you. Your energy and the fruits of your labor are spent at least partially in feathering someone else’s nest who doesn’t care a bit for you. For some, little of your energy and the fruits of your labor benefit you or your dreams very much at all.
In my experience, I witnessed a family group centered on one large house with multiple rooms and apartments, a sprawling and lively space with almost a perfect balance of public, semi-private (inner circle only), and private spaces where everyone could come together and where one could just as easily find solitude. Not everyone was a resident, and some residents were renters who nonetheless enjoyed access to some semi-private spaces and who were treated more or less like kin. The people who were part of this extended household included family and friends who lived on site, family and friends who didn’t live on site, but who were there a lot, and renters who lived on site.
This “villa”, in the heart of a historic Mexican city dating back over 400 years, was the central hub for multiple nuclear families and unmarried adults, complete with rentals to the public and even a few small shops right off the main street. Inside, one felt it was another world, set apart from the surrounding city, but not isolated from its life, and indeed very much a positive part of the city life. I was amazed at how little the people there realized the novelty of what to some sounds like an experiment in clustered living but which for them had been part of life more or less since the 1600’s, so obviously it is a workable model.
Due to respect for privacy, and because I wasn’t visiting there to compile a report for public consumption, I won’t share pictures or details. Suffice it to say, because I have a history with this family dating back to the 1990s, I was more or less treated as a member while there and experienced their life as if I had always lived there. It is a place I am happy to say that if I ever needed a respite or chose to leave my own country, where I would be welcome and fit in. My own desire to master Spanish is driven substantially by a desire to spend more time down there.
I may have been a Gringo to the outside world, but to these people I was like a relative visiting from abroad and “coming home”, and that will always be something I deeply cherish. That their instinctive, unplanned model of community tracks so well with my own planned and envisioned model of community doesn’t surprise me because I studied family and community models across many cultures and civilizations from the most ancient to the most modern times and discerned in them a pattern which very much looks like this Mexican family’s estate, both the phyical space and the people/relationships within it.
The ability to form a close-knit inner circle of local people who, inasmuch as they can, approximate this ideal, even if their only hub is a single house and none cluster together on one piece of real estate, is essential to the kind of empowerment that one doesn’t have to be rich to attain and that is stronger than most of the external pressures that often rob you of your empowerment today.
In Mexico, this family already had a ready-made community of people, but they have welcomed others in, such as myself. Perhaps you and your family and friends have a ready-made community and don’t realize it, but as many families are dispersed and live in different states and as many of our friends may be online, and as few neighbors know each other, the idea of trying to form some sort of “intentional estate” with 20-30 other local adults is daunting. Despite this, however, it is the ultimate necessity, though by no means does it have to begin there and, if you use these ideas, you can enjoy real benefits well before that ideal is achieved.
Family can form around a number of things including blood and marriage, some experience unique to your group (like veterans), religious and/or philosophical convictions about life and its meaning, or something we refer to as a form of “intentional nationhood.” The concept behind intentional nationhood is that there are multiple connection points between individuals whose strength is such that when people act in unity it is more a natural effect of their shared identity and purpose and requires little or no directed management from some “authority.”
Unlike blood and marriage kinship, nationhood is something people have to understand and adopt willingly, from the heart, because it just FITS who and what they are, which also means that when they find others of the same nationhood, there is a strong instant connection to build rapport and engagement around. Loosely similar to this, the fact I know this family’s history, try to speak the language, eat the same food, have the same essential beliefs, and the such, all allowed me to form a sort of nationhood with them, even to the point I have been given an adoptive name I use with them. A part of me is Mexican, even though by blood I have no Mexican ancestry, though my wife certainly does.
I should note also that the vision for a new globally distributed form of nationhood people can adopt to connect with a worldwide community of like-minded fellow travelers would easily fit within the “shared nationhood” that this extended family group seems to follow, even if they don’t use the term. I anticipate for many extended family groups in Mexico, adopting this global nationhood as part of their own nationhood will probably be easier than for many Americans, but that it is essential that Americans learn to do this, or something like it, if we are to restore the social fabric in this country.
Forming a sense of community with others can begin with a semi-formal agreement as to a set of ideals and principles and/or goals but also a pledge of mutual support through something like what we call “the four questions of fellowship”, namely:
Does anyone know of a praiseworthy example of success that we could benefit from learning and applying to our lives and our fellowship together?
Does anyone have an example of a cautionary tale or of failure we would do well to take cognizance of in our lives and in our fellowship together?
Does anyone have a problem or need or situation they cannot handle and for which they cannot get help or advice which we might assist them with or advise them regarding?
Does anyone need an introduction to some person of influence, wealth, or power who can advance their career, business, or situation which perhaps we might help them with?
If you found 5-10 people to get together on a regular basis and break bread over these four questions, you would naturally, organically, and without much fuss or hassle begin the experience the benefits of a what will feel more and more like an extended family group than just a few friends. This simple direction added to your fellowship together will add many new dimensions and open up opportunities for mutual advancement and advantage that nobody can predict or outline as some “program.”
In addition to these questions, there is a need for a pledge, we use the term “Pledge of Common Unity”, which is more detailed and specific, but basically comes down to you pledge to follow the same standards and norms among each other AND to do all in your power and means to support and protect one another to the degree you feel their well-being, happiness, and success is also essential to your own well-being, happiness, and success.
We detail ideals and principles which form the basis of our shared standards and norms and how we will mutually support one another as well as some of our shared goals, for instance outreach to help the needy and support for refugees. What is important is to essentially create a charter that acts as a pledge that is specific enough to be meaningful without being overwrought with formality and non-essentials. A loose pledge has no meaning or value because it doesn’t translate to action, but a narrow and too detailed pledge can become, frankly, controlling and cultish in its effect.
Starting to build a sense of community is as simple as that. But finding people who will take the plunge may be more difficult. It’s probably the hardest first step to define your community, e.g. beliefs and purposes, then to somehow reach people who see that and say, “I like that, it fits me.”
If you have close-knit family and friends already, find what is common to them, define your community on that basis, and ask them to participate in your periodic gatherings, using a meal and the four questions, for mutual support and benefit. If most of my closer kin moved near me, we would easily have a sense of community and could work toward building a family estate because in terms of religion, lifestyle, and philosophy, the adoption of the global nationhood I am promoting actually fits them well.
But in many cases, this isn’t possible. You may not have a church home, which can be a place where you find fellow travelers willing to participate in such an adventure, but you may not. You may live in an area where you know a few other people who you would be willing or able to become so connected to. In these cases, starting an online club around your idea and advertising, perhaps through fliers or even online ads, to find like-minded people around you may be all you can do. This may cost less than or around a few hundred dollars over time, but as soon as you find 5 or so people the chances are one or more of them will know other people they can recommend to join your club.
If you stay tuned in this space, we will have examples of charters, including how to use or adapt our Pledge of Common Unity and/or our Pledge of Peers, to form your own independent, Freedomist, or what we call Upadarian (new word alert: the name for a specific global Christian community), Communities. We are offering affiliation within our larger Freedomist and/or Upadarian frameworks, but the concepts, methods, and practices for forming community with others can be adapted easily to your own thing as well.
In conclusion, we posit the idea that if you seek empowerment to be able to follow your own path of destiny and purpose and to fulfill what you see as God’s best for your life, then “empowerment 101” for you should be to find and form your own inner circle who begin with shared standards and norms and at least the four questions of fellowship along with some sort of pledge for mutual support, assurance, and benefit that feels like kinship.
