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What is Vibrancy? Maybe it's a sense of place.

A sense of place gathers people together; when we find ourselves rooted in place, our work, our interactions, our lives take on deeper meaning. Perhaps cultivating a sense of place is a way to encourage vibrancy. "Sense of place depends on a shared environment, a shared history, but most of all on a community of people who live and work together." - Saint John's Abbey

Building on Melissa's idea of vibrancy as togetherness, I thought of my experience at Saint John's in Collegeville, Minnesota - a community that was defined by its vibrancy and sense of place.  There, the people find vibrancy not only in the immediate community, but by understanding the community in the context of place and time.

All communities share an environment, share a place-based history, and are comprised of a community of people who live and work together.  The sense for one's environment, history, and community may be lacking when we don't connect to our environment, when we don't understand the history that we are a part of, and don't know or care about the people we live with or work together with (in a broader sense than just within our own organization).

What if sense of place cultivates vibrancy?  What if sense of place makes the difference between Detroit as city and Detroit as place, for example?  If it does, then we should invest our efforts in developing a sense of place to restore our understanding of who we are.

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