What is the good life?

In June 2015, Donald Trump, in announcing his candidacy for President, declared that the American Dream was dead. Seventeen months later, he won the office, largely due to the support of those who believed him. In my continuous quest to try to understand how we got here, I read another book that filled in many of the gaps. What J.D. Vance described so vividly in Hillbilly Elegy, author Timothy Carney explains and supports in a well researched, fascinating new book called Alienated America: Why Some Places Thrive While Others Collapse. 

Unless you're a serious reader geek, you're probably not going to want to get a copy for yourself. But I'll give you the highlights and tell you how it's affected the way I think about my own definition of the good life. (Scan ahead to the end if the book review feels daunting.)

Who were the people who agreed with Donald Trump that the American Dream was dead? What does the American Dream even look like? These were the questions behind Carney's research, and he found that "place" mattered just as much as individual voter. Of course a lot of votes for Trump were votes against Clinton, so Carney used data from primaries to make his case. Who were the early Trump supporters, those who got him on the presidential ballot? We've heard these answers before: disgruntled white working-class men, right? Yes, sort of, Carney said, but even more specific, early Trump supporters were from communities suffering from lack of "civil society."

Most of us don't use that phrase, but we know exactly what it is. It's the church on the corner that hosts VBS in the summers and a support group for widows on Tuesday nights. It's the adult softball league. It's the children's chorale and the swim club and the high school basketball team. It's schools with high parent involvement. It's the men's bowling league and the women's crafting guild. It's the YMCA where moms with young kids come to exercise with their friends, where seniors meet for monthly potlucks. It's neighborhoods where people go for walks and stand on the sidewalk shooting the breeze with their neighbors. It's local bars and restaurants where "everybody knows your name." It's marriage and children and strong families. In a word, it's what we know as "community." And by and large, early Trump supporters lived in places lacking it. These were the people who were more likely to agree that "the American Dream is dead."

Carney argues that "civil society is what makes us fully human." It also provides us with a sense of purpose:

"Life can't be fulfilling unless you feel needed. When you join a club, or a parish, or enmesh yourself deeply in a tightly bound neighborhood, people start to rely on you. ... When you read the tales of opioid-ravaged towns, you see that drugs often come in where people lack purpose. So many people lack a role in society. Absent a role, they're untethered, and the fallout of this alienation is immense." 

Carney believes that the American Dream is not so much wealth and materialism, or the opportunity for them, but that it's the T-ball game, the standing-room-only high school Christmas concert, the church potluck, decorating the community hall for a wedding. "What if those activities are not the dressings around the American Dream, but what if they are the American Dream?"

There's much more to say about who has access to good schools and swim clubs and who can afford YMCA memberships. (Carney argues that the single greatest institution of civil society is the local church, mosque, or synagogue, which offers its services for free.) There's more to say about how the government attempting to fill the gap left by a lack of civil society does not seem to renew people's hope. But that's not my point for writing today. I'm more fixated on the claim that civil society is what makes us fully human. This resonates deep within me.

I am never more alive than when I'm working with a team of people to accomplish an important task. It could be burning calories with my friends at a 5:30 a.m. class at the Y, feeding 150 hungry marching band kids at their state performance,  or problem-solving with a group of co-workers. That radiant feeling I have at basketball games and track meets and band and choir concerts? It's not just that I'm proud of my kids. My kids don't even have to be involved. I attended the high school musical a week ago and was radiating with pride for other people's kids, for our whole community. Even unloading tubas from the band's rental truck the other day, I couldn't help but think, in light of Carney's book, "this is the good life."

So how does actively recognizing that this is the good life change the way I live? A whole lot less complaining. Less frenzy over how "stressful" my life feels. Yes, I may need to make a meal for a hurting family, drive five kids to a dance, send out a dozen emails to the baccalaureate committee, prepare a lesson for AWANA, work concessions at the basketball game, help a friend prepare for a talk she's giving, and clean my house because we're hosting our small group. In one day. But every one of these things is a blessing. Every one of them keeps me tethered. I do not want to be a person who complains about my blessings. I also want my children to know that I see service and participation as a joy, not a burden. This can be tricky, especially when it comes to cleaning my house because their friends are coming over for Bible study. The vacuuming? Toilet cleaning? They are part of the good life. They're a small part of my American Dream, the one I am blessed to get to live out every day.

If you're not plugged in to some aspect of your community, find a small place to begin to connect. Volunteer an hour a week. Visit an elderly neighbor. Go to a neighborhood church. Sign up for a Bible study or small group. And if you're up to your elbows in community, as you begin this busy season, with every batch of cookies you haul to some event, with every party you attend, with every teachers' gift you shop for, with every Christmas card you address, with every kids' concert you watch and every sporting event you endure on hard bleachers, remind yourself, "This is the good life."