Cultivating the Group

After reading an excellent post on group survival, I decided that I would like to make a few extended comments on the subject. I,among others in my little group, have been slowly working towards building a small, self-reliant group that will be able to rely on each other in a crisis. No matter what that crisis may be.

We started out just meeting on a holiday once a year. Which holiday? It doesn't matter. Just pick one that suits you and go from there. What did we do? We had a great meal(s) and did everything from playing games (chldren included), meeting new family members due to marriage,divorce,etc., solving the world's problems with our sometimes lively debates and discussions, prayed for those we lost, and generally tried to have a good time with the occasional plinking with our new "toys" or a ride on the tractor or ATV.

This process we have been using for many years (well over a decade now) and it has served us well. We learn from each other. We disagree with each other. We rely on each other. We trust each other. We have come to know each other as few people do. We cried over the loss of loved ones and celebrated the births of new ones. We've eaten good food together, as well as some slightly questionable new recipes, and enjoyed a cold brew on a hot day and complained about our new job(or the old one).

Like any seed that is planted and given a little TLC, it has grown to the point where we meet at other times now. Sometimes there is a call to come together to help someone in a crisis. And coming together to help each other out is what makes life worth living, this is what truly surviving is about. Would I trust them to take care of my family if I wasn't there? In a heartbeat and without question.

Be like any good gardener that toils to make the soil productive and his seeds sprout, work to cultivate your friends and family into a stronger unit. Is it done overnight? I don't think the level of trust and the caring nature of such a group should be done too quickly. The more effort and time put into something will generate a greater value and a lasting and more durable result.

There is a certain holiday each year, that those who I have come to rely on and they on me, that
no one asks where I'll be. There is a certain place in a time of crisis that I will go and no one needs ask where I am. They will know as do I.

Stay above the water line!