It was a classic scene: a school gymnasium filled with perhaps 500 people, mostly white European ethnics and different varieties of Hispanics, of all ages (kids, parents, teachers, a few grandparents); a typical greasy-chicken-and-pasta buffet supper; a bar (at a school function!) discreetly located in a small room just off the main gymnasium floor, from which adults could get our draft beer to take back to drink at tables full of kids; a low buzz of conversation throughout the evening punctuated by rounds of applause as boys and girls from grades 4-8 would come up to receive recognition for their participation in basketball and/or volleyball; two of the parish priests milling around the room and having a good time; my son and I and some good friends (his and mine) sharing a table.
At some point, looking around the room, I realized that I knew about sixty of these people well, and another couple hundred by face or by name either from the school, or from the parish church, or from the neighborhood, or from the park district where I'd coached baseball the previous five years, or from various professional associations; and that there were others present who I didn't know well that perhaps my son did.
And it hit me, with a startling existential immediacy, that this is what it means to live in a good community: a fair amount of chaos naturally proper to free beings, but also a network of relationships from intimate to casual to anonymous, grounded in a variety of common activities and/or beliefs as well as (and not least) place. (Phil Bess)
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