Overlooking the Obvious

(re-posted from RestoreKnoxville.com)

Newcomers and visitors often see what Knoxville locals overlook: our city is a place of beauty and promise. We are an original. We are the birthplace of Tennessee.

Out-of-towners, who come to us with fresh eyes see plainly the treasure trove of delights in our people and area that we take for granted or fail to see because it is too much in plain view. We are like fish in the ocean looking for water. And so our dilemma is not that we are lacking something or that we need a big idea to save us. It simply is that we fail to see what we already possess. We lack an appreciation for our own strength.

We hear the reasons for our underachieving with some regularity; I refuse to catalog, mainly because it really doesn’t matter. What matters is that we have so much going for us and we need to think on these things regularly and picture how we can work and plan together to make this city a great city for everybody in it today and for our children to come. RestoreKnoxville.com presents such an opportunity.

Here is a story that describes the attitude shift required.

There is a story about a weary traveler who comes to a crossroads and encounters a wise old man. The traveler is looking for a place to rest and inquires of a large town sighted off in the distance: “What kind of people live there?” The old man answers his question with a question, “What kind from whence you came?” When the traveler confides that the last town he visited was full of filthy streets and vicious people, knaves and thieves, the old man tells him, “Avoid that town; it’s exactly the same. You will find no peace there.” The weary man thanks him profusely for saving him a needless journey and trudges off in the opposite direction. The next day another dusty and tired traveler comes to that same crossroads, meets the same old man, and asks the same question: “What kind of people live there?” But this traveler tells the old man that the town from whence he came was a place of flower-strewn streets, good and giving people who always greeted each other with a smile. And the wise ole man says, “The town waiting over the horizon is exactly the same. Go down there and rest in peace.”

From the foreword to “Revolution of the Heart: a new strategy for creating wealthy and meaningful change,” by Bill Shore

Another reference points toward the solution. It is about care.

“Our problem is weak communities...Those relationships formed by consent and manifested as care are the center of community. It is this consenting care that is the essence of our role as citizens. And it is the ability of citizens to care that creates strong communities and able democracies.”
“Care is the consenting commitment of citizens to one another. Care cannot be produced, provided, managed, organized, administered, or commodified. Care is the only thing a system cannot produce. Every institutional effort to replace the real thing is a counterfeit.
“Care is, indeed, the manifestation of a community. The community is the site for the relationships of citizens. And it is at this site that the primary work of a caring society must occur. If that site is invaded, co-opted, overwhelmed, and dominated then the work of the community will fail.”

From the introduction to “The Careless Society: Community and its Counterfeits,” by John McKnight

Perhaps after looking over Restore Knoxville you will know where you came from.