It takes more than a village

The phrase “it takes a village” refers to a cooperative effort. The town where I used to live is incorporated as a village. This strikes me as odd because the population is 27,000. It’s larger than Fernandina Beach and we are a city. That doesn’t make sense. Why be a village?

The reason dates back to 1894, when the state said a village could retain control over its own government. As a city, we have control over our own government. With that control comes expenses, staffing, costs, challenges and responsibilities. We have been bumping up against the challenges on various fronts. We have not been acting very village-like.

The saying “it takes a village” originated as an African proverb about the communal responsibility for raising children. It highlights the need for cooperation to achieve a goal important for the good of all. We have been squandering energy and effort lately, while conflicting over how issues should or could be handled. It makes achieving goals even harder, that is, if the goals are agreed upon.

In conflict management work, effort is placed on getting groups to agree on what are called “superordinate” goals. (Muzafer Sharif, mid-20th century) This is the kind of goal that no one individual or group can accomplish on its own, that provides inspiration, energy and motivation to work together. What are or could be our superordinate goals?

When a group or groups have a superordinate goal, things start to happen.

Take the experimental archaeology project, the Guedelon Castle in the Burgundy region of France. Their superordinate goal is to reconstruct a 13th-century castle by hand in an abandoned sandstone quarry using only the tools, technology and materials of that time. The project brings together craftspeople of every sort working together. They have been working on it since 1997. About 300,000 visitors now tour it annually and it brings in roughly 3 million Euros in revenue.

The workers continue to learn and document how medieval people solved challenges in the building process. A wonderful and unforeseen consequence of their work is that the skills they learned were passed to the craftspeople who worked to authentically rebuild Notre Dame after its catastrophic fire in 2019.

Wonderful and surprising things happen when people work together to achieve big goals.

Another example of working toward a superordinate goal is the work of the Sisters of St. Joseph.  Their order originated in Le Puy, France. Their first members arrived in St. Augustine in 1866. They cared for the sick, educated children, especially black children, and provided many services throughout Florida.  In 1877, some were sent to Fernandina to care for the sick and dying from a yellow fever epidemic. Many families had abandoned their sick relatives for fear of the disease. The sisters entered the homes of the sick and did what they could to provide comfort and relief. The sisters even placed the dead in their coffins. Their residence was a yellow house still standing on North Fourth Street. The two nuns who succumbed to the disease are buried in Bosque Bello Cemetery. There is much more to learn about all they accomplished in writings by Nola Perez in “The Nun’s Story,” a manuscript held at the Museum of History. Our own Dickie Anderson also reported on their work.

Another superordinate goal is the pursuit of “beloved community." This phrase was popularized by The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his quest for peace and justice through nonviolent means. Dr. King’s theology and philosophy had many influences including Josiah Royce who taught philosophy at Harvard, where Dr. King would later study.  Dr. King wrote about it in 1956 in his paper, “Facing the Challenges of a New Age:”

“But the end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of a beloved community. It is this type of spirit and this type of love that can transform opposers into friends. It is this kind of understanding and goodwill that will transform the deep gloom of the old age into the exuberant gladness of the new age. It is this love which will bring about miracles.”

Working toward a beloved community asks for a recognition of the interconnectedness of all life where all are respected, where the poor and vulnerable are cared for and where everyone belongs. It asks for transformation of institutions that cause harm or discriminate. It asks that conflicts be resolved peacefully and with respect. Through dark times, Dr. King was able to remain hopeful because he believed a beloved community was possible.

In these fractured times, community seems like a distant dream. Recreating a 13th-century castle by hand was once a distant dream, too.

If we could step back from the tensions of the moment and take a wider view, who knows what could happen?

• Could the energy to work together become palpable and contagious?
• Could the mood lift and lighten?
• Could the future be bright with promise and excitement instead of fear of the next shoe to drop?
• Could our community become an inspiration and example for other seaside island towns?

It will take being more than a village to bring that kind of community into being.