A Sense of Community

I am reading a book entitled "Black Angels" . It's about a white girl growing up in Georgia before the Civil Rights Movement. She sees a trio of little black angels everywhere and wonders why....I am not finished with the book, but a quote struck me while I was reading and it hit "close to home".

In the book the girl Celli has a black housekeeper named Sophie. Celli's mother is out of town and Sophie is caring for her and her brother. They both attend church with Sophie and visit the sick from Sophie's all black church congregation. Sophie is trying to teach the children to be "neighborly", and says the following to the kids "You white folks got nothing to bind you together. That's the problem. When times get hard you all just go it alone or stuff it in the kitchen closet with the brooms. Lord Jesus, what a sorrowful lot."

Now, I am white, and when I have had troubles or problems I rarely turn to anyone to share it with, whether friends, family or fellow church members. I wonder why this is....

I have lived in my current home for almost 15 years, and it has only been the past couple of years that I have made the effort to get to know my neigbors. Well, I have two direct neighbors, but only "talk" with one family. They are a Hispanic couple in their late 50's across the street from me. He gives me plums, I have given him vegetables from my garden and eggs from my hens. We keep an eye on each other's houses, and his granddaughter used to play with my daughter regularly until his granddaughter moved. This past weekend, they helped to remove a dead tree from our yard. With the exception of my two girls, we were all out there pulling on ropes, carting off cut wood, etc. I think this is what a sense of community, and being neighborly is all about.

My other neighbors I rarely talk to, the funny thing is they are white. Normally, I don't think about the color of someone's skin, but this book had me thinking about how the different cultures associate and help each other out. One of the reasons that I don't really associate with the other neighbors is their lifestyle. They are very big into drugs. I don't have a problem who truly need help in the way of food stamps or other government assistance, but I do have a difficult time with those who don't try and better themselves, and have baby after baby just to keep their welfare benefits. I feel so sorry for the little ones running around there....I would be friendlier with them, IF it weren't for the fact that they use and deal drugs. The local police here don't really seem to care, as nothing has been done about the drugs. Oh, it used to be a lot worse when all of their kids were younger. There was a constant stream of drive by drug deals going on....it made me very nervous. We live in a very nice small town, and I moved here to give my kids a better life out of the big city, but the drugs are worse here than where I lived before. I just don't understand it. Now their kids have moved on, and it has died down quite a bit, but is still going on.

Anyway, back to the sense of community. I don't know that I have a well developed sense of community and would rather be on the giving end, than the receiving end. Even as a Christian, with a close knit church family, it's hard for me to go to them with things that I need help with, or problems I am dealing with, I just don't know how. Oh, superficial things, like borrowing a tiller or helping me pass out flyers when I ran for city council were okay, but deeper issues like marital problems, child rearing issues, financial problems are just too personal to talk about with them.

I often think about the lone pioneer woman out on the prairie somewhere. Who did she talk to? Who helped her? How did she feel? If there were other women around, I have read that they helped each other with the canning, quilting, and child birthing, but did they ask each other's advice on marriage and how to raise children? I think this is what your extended family was for, and know that there used to be many generations living all under one roof, so maybe this helped as everyone knew what the problems were. I just get the impression that the pioneers were an independent, hardy bunch, and probably didn't feel too comfortable asking for help, and being "beholden" to anyone. Is a coincidence that most of the pioneers appear to be white? (Oh I know other nationalities were mixed in, but they were mostly European).

Among the black culture, I think there is a great sense of community, grown out of isolation, oppression, and a need to survive. They needed to band together, and the same with the Hispanic community. Don't get me wrong I don't think "neighborliness" is entirely a race issue, but a cultural, regional, country vs. city issue; and I definitely don't believe that the blacks or hispanics have had a harder time than any other group. Each disadvantaged group has had, in their time, their struggles, and women have struggled even longer. I am not one to apologize for the past ills that cultures have suffered, especially if I didn't personally cause someone to suffer. But I do take notice of the way each deals with each other, the good and the bad, and try to learn from them. I also take notice of how people pull themselves up and better their lives and the lives of their families through hard work and determination. Wallowing in the past does not help anyone.

As an American, independence is strongly encouraged and admired, which may make it even harder for Americans to ask for help when it is really needed.

Okay, off my soap box for now, I will let everyone know how the book turns out.

I finished the book tonight. It was very good. The culmination of the story is that Sophie gets involved with the Freedom Riders during the Civil Rights Movement and Celli discovers that her Daddy was 1/2 black 1/2 white, which makes her 3/4 white and 1/4 black. She is shocked when she discover this during a meeting with her Daddy's mom, who is obviously not white.

She attempts to come to terms with this, and believes that the angels she sees were meant to help her through this transition in her life, while living in Georgia in 1961.

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I spent most of the day cleaning; doing a better job than normally. I know I have mentioned it before but I really like to follow a routine in my household duties, and in cleaning. I ALWAYS start at the front door, in the foyer area. I dusted today, swept, mopped, vacuumed, then moved on to the living room. The living room is normally in good shape as I clean this room every day, in case of company. The dining room was a bit of wreck due to the kids (along with my niece) working on craft projects last night. I had glitter dusting every surface. Kind of pretty,

The kitchen takes me the longest to finish. I washed dishes, put up the jelly making pots, and placed the finished jelly in the jar box and set the box on the buffet waiting for orders to be filled, or just a jar to give away.

Laundry was next (though also done throughout the day, as Monday is laundry day). My goal is to complete all my laundry on Mondays, but I also washed sheets and blankets today which take longer to dry on the clothes line, and kind of backs up the drying process with the other clothes, especially jeans. It was hot today, but the everything took a LONG time in drying. It's after 7:00 pm, and I put the last load of the day in the dryer, as there is no way it will dry before dark.

The bathroom I bleached and then did a better than normal job on my bedroom, though I have three piles of clothes in here that need to make their way to the laundry room. Primarily blankets. I am going through comforters, and blankets and getting them aired, washed and holes mended in preparation for placement on the beds in October. (I know way ahead of schedule. LOL!) My bedroom tends to be the "catch all" for the entire house, and there is too much clutter, though I am happy with the result from today's effort.

I had put a pork tenderloin in the crock pot this morning. I will share the recipe with everyone, as it was wonderful! Everyone loved it.

1 pork tenderloin

2 cups of water or 1/2 water and 1/2 red wine

3 TBSP of soy sauce

one package of dried onion soup mix

garlic cloves (I used garlic powder and sprinkled on top of tenderloin)

sprinkle with pepper

cook all on low for four hours

I served this with green beans and fresh bread. I cut the tenderloin in rounds and served the broth in a small bowl on each plate to use in dipping the meat into. Man! I almost wish I had cooked two tenderloins, it was that good!

The guys spent the early evening cutting the fallen tree into manageable pieces and stacking in the front yard, plus clearing up smal branches. I talked to the insurance company today, and the claims adjuster from the insurance company should be out here sometime this week. The tree really damaged the brick walk out front (my poor 100 year old bricks!) There are two HOLES where the tree CRUSHED the bricks as it fell. It's amazing that the roof survived in tact. Actually, I guess it isn't amazing. I was praying the entire time that God would spare the roof from being crushed, and He did. There are a few spots of damaged shingles and two spots where the plywood has a hole punched into it, about 3 inches in diameter. The top part of the tree was so dry that when it fell, it broke rather than crushing the roof. The bottom part of the trunk, is probably what did the damage, from weight alone. The pecan tree is over 100 years old, so pretty huge. Thank you God for answering my prayer!