Relationships grow out of shared experience. These relationships form a kind of economy, one that supports us and nourishes us and that is worth valuing as much as we value the cash economy of free-market capitalism.

Years ago when I lived in the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island, I was inspired to get involved in my community. Near my home, a river-front property known as the Quan Chow Lands was slated for development on what was essentially flood-plain. I and others joined up to see if there was another alternative to building seniors’ housing on this fertile patch of land, at one time the site of a successful vegetable farm. Though there was a lot of energy to save the land, the developers won the day and the project, Canterbury Place, went ahead. Ironically, the land flooded even as the foundations of the new houses were being laid.

There is an apocryphal story about an anthropologist who leaves a television in a village in Africa. (We can presume that the village either has regular access to electricity or a generator.) For a while the community gathers around the talking box with great interest. But when the anthropologist returns some months later he finds his gift covered in dust and cobwebs. He asks the villagers why they haven’t been watching it. One of them replies, “Your box knows many stories, in fact many more than our storyteller, but the difference is, our storyteller knows us.”

This comment can be read and understood in a couple of different ways: the village storyteller knows what kinds of stories are most relevant and familiar to her listeners. She knows when and what to tell. Like a mirror, she reflects back to them their own world and their own history, as well as their own potential as moral agents. She sees who they are and she sees who they can be.