Mother Nature today, yesterday the loss of a job, the illness of a friend or the unspeakable violence of someone wielding a gun in Arizona forces us to re-decide where to place our faith and what really matters.

Neighbors have the capacity to know what we need. What we need are the gifts that surround us. What we need is each other. And when we act together, we will find the community way. The democratic way.

To those who say our neighborhoods are broken, there is a simple process to help awaken neighborhood power by finding out what people love to do and are willing to teach or learn.

We have lost the imagination of what a neighborhood could do to raise a child. This means there is a great opportunity to organize neighbors to raise the local children -- to become a village that raises the children.