Commitment

Every once in a while I read a piece that makes me think, "Dang! I wish I'd written this!" This post by Grounded and Rooted in Love's Heather Kirk-Davidoff is just such a piece.

In looking at Columbia's 50th Birthday and suggesting that it presents us with a chance to recommit to the Columbia way of life, she asks:

Do we still want to live in a community where "the janitor and the CEO" live nearby each other, as Rouse famously said. Maybe we have gotten ahead of ourselves in our conversations about how to build affordable house or end homelessness. Maybe we need to back up and ask the kinds of questions that would help us to remember why this was ever a value to begin with.

It isn't enough to say that Columbia means something. The knowledge of exactly what that is needs to be widely shared and the commitment to living that in our community life must be an active choice. It won't just happen.

In 2012 I touched on this in the piece "Looking for Mr. GoodRouse."

We need to make the magic. And we need to forge the relationships that will make that possible. Sitting around waiting for the "Great Good" someone to make things right with Columbia leaves us vulnerable to anyone who knows the real rules of the game and can operate past us in our love affair with Magical Thinking.

Rev'd Kirk-Davidoff looks at a marriage and a church community that stay the course by re-examining their commitment each year and making a conscious choice whether to continue. I think she's absolutely right that Columbia requires this kind of a conscious choice and active commitment.