They Build Bridges

November 5, 2020

My colleague Mindy says that September 12 was her favorite day of 2001.

America was reeling from the shock and horror of the events of the day before. But Mindy noticed immediately that the one good thing that 9/11 had shattered, at least temporarily, was barriers between people. We needed to put life back together, and to do that, we humans gravitated naturally to each other. We ignored differences in background and opinions and even geography so that we could rebuild for the future. There was a lot of hugging. Disparate individuals formed loose groups, and organizer-types like Mindy strengthened them into communities that could create more than individuals acting alone. The community extended far beyond New York or D.C.: The rest of the world rushed to send resources, manpower, emotional support. Our kids watched as we rebuilt, together.

Together.

Working together, humans are capable of extraordinary things. But together is tough these days. My friend William, who is a rabbi in Maine, was telling us on a Zoom-call college reunion recently that he and other religious leaders are terribly worried about the permanent effects of COVID on their communities. We're getting habituated to being separated, he said. If being together equates to danger in our minds, how easy will it be to gather a community in person again once the risk of COVID transmission is past?

It's going to require some effort to reintegrate communities that build stuff, that's for sure. It's easier to do so when people come together naturally than when that's not happening; that's why, despite the devastation, Mindy found September 12, 2001 and the days that followed so inspiring. But there are a lot of Mindys out there—people who look for the gaps and forge coalitions to engineer solutions. They find ways around barriers, they help good people find each other, they build bridges.

Anyone can decide to be a community engineer, a changemaker. It takes no special talent, just the conviction that communities can emerge purposefully, the determination to ignore artificial differences as we seek reasons to connect, some imagination to envision a future that is better than today, and a pinch of courage to be the one to kick-start the process.

The kids are watching.

—Deb