Modern Tribes

“We ate well and cheaply, and drank well and cheaply, and slept well and warm together, and loved each other.”

Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast 

The feeling of “home” is a cocktail of familiarity and safety and trust.

It gets stirred up when we spend time with people who know us, accept us, and love us.  People who understand our customs. Our foods and toasts and rituals and prayers and values. 

Our tribe. 

Our ancestors lived in tribes for millennia, long before we started recording history. The Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek words for “tribe” appear in the Bible more than 300 times.

But our culture isn’t particularly tribal today, is it? 

Two thousand years ago, we might have shared every meal with our tribe. Lived in the same village. We would have worked and worshipped together. 

Most of us don’t live like that today.  

I live in Nashville with my wife and our three children, but other important members of our tribe aren’t here. Our parents don’t live here. Neither do our brothers, sisters, nieces, or nephews.

Some of our best friends live on the other side of the country, and a few even live across an ocean. 

It takes more intention to establish the kinds of bonds that create a modern tribe.

But the good news is that it’s possible today. Two thousand years ago, it wasn’t possible to have a geographically dispersed tribe. Today, it is.

Home isn’t just a place. It’s a feeling. 

We should try to fill our physical homes with love for our spouse and children. There’s no substitute for physical presence. But we can also create feelings of ‘home’ for everyone in our tribe. Familiarity. Safety. Trust. For friends, extended family, and even close colleagues.

But it doesn’t happen without effort. If we want to create homes full of love, and if we want to cultivate a tribe, it takes work.

That’s on us.