In general, Peter Block’s books flip our conventional way of thinking on its head in a way that forces us to examine and reconsider our perspectives. This can be uncomfortable, startling, and maybe even painful. One example that sticks with me from his book, The Answer to How is Yes, is the question, “How am I contributing to the problem I’m complaining about?”

Oh, dear. I may squirm, but I can’t escape from this question that pins me to the wall. It forces me to examine my own complicity, my responsibility, and holds me accountable.

Similarly, in his new book, Community: the Structure of Belonging, Block points out that as members of a community, each of us belongs, and to belong entails two things – one, that we are part of something, we are connected to this place we call home; and second, that we are owners, which implies responsibility and accountability. As citizens, we “are our best shot for making a difference,” he says in his introduction, and we are in the position of being creators and healers.

So. You may as well know stepping into this book that there will be no pointing to the man behind the curtain who will fix it all. Even more money won’t fix our community, Block insists. It comes down to us, in this room, at this time, whether we think we are equipped or not and whether we tremble in fear of the gifts we may have to dig out from under layers of denial and blame in order to put them to good use.

[A brief confession. I’ve personally been overheard blaming: partisan politics; self-centered and entitled young people; people who don’t take care of themselves physically; churches not oriented to social justice; and more.]

Block’s overall premise is that our communities suffer from isolation, which can be transformed by building our social fabric through connectivity and caring in small groups. In fact, small groups are the unit of transformation, especially if they are designed to connect people to others who are unlike them, people who disagree, who see the world differently. The work he describes requires a shift in thinking, described in the first part of the book, but also a methodology, which he outlines in the second half.

Let’s look at a few of Block’s challenges to shift our thinking.

+ “The essential work [of community transformation] is to build social fabric, both for its own sake and to enable chosen accountability among citizens.” p.30 Contrast this with an individualistic mindset, so common in our culture that it is taken for granted.
+ A leader’s role is to convene and listen.
+ “To continue, as a community, to focus on the needs and deficiencies of the most vulnerable is not an act of hospitality. It substitutes labeling for welcoming. It is isolating in that they become a special category of people, defined by what they cannot do.” p. 59
+ “Communal transformation, taking back our collective projections, occurs when people get connected to those who were previously strangers, and when we invite people into conversations that ask them to act as creators or owners of a community.” p.60
+ Questions are more powerful than answers. Powerful questions are ambiguous, personal, and they evoke anxiety.

What do you think about these ideas? What intrigued you about the book? What provoked you?

Ruth Stegeman