By the time you all are reading this, I should be on my way to the beautiful (I'm assuming -- I've never been there, but I figure it's best to start off with positive assumptions) city of Minneapolis for the American Guild of English Handbell Ringers (who now want to be called Handbell Musicians of America) National Seminar. It's four straight days of classes, roundtables, shopping, ringing, listening, eating, breathing, and swimming in handbell goodness, surrounded by hundreds of other folks who are all eating and breathing and drinking it in, too.
In short, I'm going to be with my Tribe.
We spend our lives surrounded by countless people, and we all bear unique and diverse relationships to them. Some people are related to us by blood; others by marriage. There are the friends we go shopping with, the friends we play sports with, the friends we go to dinner with. There are people we associate with at work, people we associate with at our child's school, people we associate with at businesses we frequent. Even at work, there are unique groups: people who are above us (like bosses and managers), people who are our equals, and people who are our subordinates, and we relate to each of these groups in very different ways.
None of these is our Tribe.
I, too, have these relationships -- at school where I teach, with the students and the parents of the students I give piano lessons to, with people at church, with people at the local Starbucks (yes, I drink a lot of coffee). I love them all in their own unique ways and am thrilled they are a part of my life ... but they're not my Tribe.
We all have a Tribe, and in many cases more than one. Our Tribe consists of the people who have the same passions in life as we do, the same calling. What we do with most of our lives is often not what we are passionate about. The people around us may love us, support us, wish us well ... but they don't feel the same yearnings in their heart of hearts as we do. Our Tribe supports us ... but they give us more -- they give us a sense of belonging, or rightness, of acceptance. Our Tribe lets us know that our passions, our deep desires are fine, right, healthy, and good. Our Tribe feeds our minds, strengthens our convictions, and nourishes our souls.
My tribe is musicians, and specifically handbell musicians. I do many things with my life, but I am a musician and composer. Any time I do things with other handbell musicians, I am with my Tribe.
Our Tribes don't have to be local -- my mother is a quilter, and she is part of a vast Tribe who regularly post pictures of gorgeous and elaborate quilts on their own blogs, and comment copiously on each other's blogs. Her Tribe is spread across several countries on at least three continents, and I'm fairly certain that for at least a couple of them, English is a second language, perhaps a third of fourth. I interact with members of my own Tribe from coast to coast via email and Facebook.
But it's a wonderful thing when members of a Tribe all gather together in person. The synergy in the room as multiple people of like mind share their ideas, their contagious enthusiasm, their love and their passion for a thing is indescribable. My mother gets together with members of her Tribe once or twice a year for quilting retreats where they sit, sew, compare fabrics and patterns, and generally have a good time being quilters. My trip today is the same thing -- getting together in person with my Tribe to share ideas, grow, expand, and rejoice in our shared interest.
I could go on here (and may in later posts) about the Tribe -- like the fact that we may belong to more than one, or even that the Tribes we belong to may well change with the years or phases of our lives -- but I think you get the idea. If you don't know who your Tribe is, take some time today to contemplate what you're really passionate about, what you would do with your spare time if you didn't have to work for money and wouldn't make money doing it. If you really want to earn your brownie points, search the internet to find people and groups that share your passion, and see if you could connect with them. For most Tribes, all you need to belong is to care about what the Tribe cares about. Try it ... I'm betting they'll welcome you with open arms.
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