The other day I attended, with my wife, my first Neighborhood Association meeting. It was a fascinating experience. It was, at the same time, an effective practice of democracy and one one the most inefficient meetings I have attended.
The meeting took place a couple days before Christmas so it was attended by, what I can only assume, are the die hards of local involvement. All of them, except for two council observers, lived in my neighborhood and had deep seated ideas about what should happen in our neighborhood.
We spent two hours deciding which 7 goals we should send to the City Council to represent the views and concerns of our neighborhood. The surprising part is that the 7 goals we ended on were already written down at the beginning of the meeting. We just sorted them. Two hours of sorting.
While part of me was amazed at the slowness of consensus another part of me came to conclude that I was observing people that loved their neighborhood. LOVED their neighborhood. One could deride this care but I was looking at them as examples. I speak about the fact that, as disciples, we should love our neighborhoods but they were doing it. They were showing up to long meetings and working to ensure the parks and streets children play on are safe and maintained. They were trying to ensure that abandoned buildings and neglected streets were not forgotten. They were loving their city and its citizens.
Often times the care for the neighborhood each of these people had collided with the others. Different emphasis and different values. This caused longer conversation and a few misunderstandings and not a few tangents in topic. While this created a long endeavor, it only goes to show that these people were invested.
While inefficiency seems evident at this point, I think the effectiveness of the meeting should be lauded. In all its messiness, this was a perfect example of democracy in action. Any member of the neighborhood could have attended and voted at this meeting (We did and it was our first time). At this meeting, concerns and values were sifted through and everyone inputed. After 2 hours of disorganized talk, and many tangents, we arrived at a sorted list and all voted in agreement that these were the goals that would be sent to the Council. I was at the base level of democracy and it was fascinating. This sifting happens all the way up the government ladder. Neighborhoods influencing cities. Cities influencing counties. Counties and districts influencing states. States influencing a nation.
While there is undoubtedly more efficient ways to govern there is not a more effective way to included everyone who is working to love their neighborhood.