The Irrepressible Ability to Have Community

March 27th, 2026 by Kelly Kienzle

Quick – – in how many ways is our sense of community being pulled apart?  Could you list 5, 10, 500 ways in which we are separating from each other?  What are all the ways in which we are dividing into our little clans? How often are we turning away from each other?  I know I could easily engage in this agonizing exercise, and sometimes I do.

The Reason

Yet a few nights ago, I discovered that despite having even a hundred million reasons to be torn apart, we humans can and do still come together for just one reason.  We just need one person, one gathering, or in my case one Lady Gaga concert to come back together, as if we never left one another.

As I stood at my seat, I could see 20,000 people all looking in one direction, singing one song, and admiring one person.  (Or maybe admiring 10 people, if you count the mesmerizing dancers and musicians in her troupe.)  Most of the audience was waving their lights, living for the applause they heard around them, all of us together.

The Community

And there it was.  Community.  Right in that moment and for about another 2 hours of moments. Community had never left me.

Community still existed as a backbone, strong yet invisible. But it had just been bulldozed and covered over with empty distractions and false priorities.

We humans are innate community-seekers.  We are, in fact, born this way to need each other to survive physically and emotionally.

The Remembering

And so now when I feel myself vanishing into the banality of media outlets, I can remember that community will always exist.  I just have to remember to listen and look for it, out in the mayhem.

 

Just for fun: Can you find all 6 Gaga references in the paragraphs above?  I believe in you, you little monsters.