Building Bridges by Cathy Gohlke

 ~ 5 Ways No Creek Built Community and We Can, Too ~

 

In my novels Night Bird Calling and A Hundred Crickets Singing, the rural and remote town of No Creek represents a microcosm of our world. Different races, different nationalities, different ideologies live and sometimes war in this small town. As with any group of people, they need to build bridges to ease tensions, to strengthen and build community. Here’s how they do it—and how we can, too.

1.    In Night Bird Calling, a family of means decides to share their wealth of books with the community by opening a lending library in their home. They recognize a need within their community and fill it. What do you have that your community needs and that you can join with others to share?


2.      To introduce their lending library to the community Miss Lill and Celia ask the pastors of No Creek’s churches to invite their congregations to a celebratory tea to open the library. Making neighbors feel welcome by offering food and drink, along with a little music (Joe Earl’s fiddle playing and the harmony of the Saints Delight Church choir), goes a long way toward introducing them to the library. Sometimes we just need to invite people to join us. It helps when trusted voices—like the pastors in No Creek—affirm or extend the invitation. What trusted voices can you call on to endorse efforts to build community?


3.     Celia’s rendition of the Christmas pageant in No Creek is unconventional, to say the least, but it brings to life the plight of refugees with real and desperate needs and gives the community the opportunity to help them. Though there’s nothing like seeing a crisis firsthand to spur people to action, sometimes it helps to create a picture people can understand—like a theatre production or a painting or photography exhibit. How can you show others a human need that requires action?

4.     In A Hundred Crickets Singing, Joe convinces the Willards and the Percys to help him create an Italian feast to bring the community together. He says it was what the grandmothers in his old Italian neighborhood did to ease troubles between warring grown children. A little music, a little dancing, and great food is Joe’s prescription. It also helps that those attending have to learn something entirely new in order to eat the food. They’ve never eaten spaghetti and have to learn how to twirl the slippery pasta onto their forks. It places everyone on a similar footing and creates lots of fun and laughter. What sort of event can you imagine where people might learn or participate in something new, without risking too much embarrassment, to encourage them to laugh with one another? Laughter is known as the “best medicine” for good reason, releasing tension and bringing people together.

5.     No Creek desperately needs a medical clinic that will serve everyone, regardless of race. While there is no denying the stubborn stance and laws of segregation at the time, those who are willing find a path forward despite the resistance they face. Two things help unite the races and the community. First, women in the community, together with trusted pastors, endorse the project and meet personally with other women—often overlooked community members who can gain the ear of their husbands. Second, once the leaders of the building project finalize details, members of both churches—Shady Grove and Saints Delight—are encouraged by their pastors to help build the medical clinic. This gives everyone an opportunity to contribute labor even if they cannot contribute money, giving them a stake and pride in the clinic. It also provides an opportunity to labor together and iron out differences created on the job, building relationships that might extend into the future. Together they witness the growing and finished product of their combined labor. Sometimes we need a project to pool our resources. Financial commitments are good, but there is no substitute for laboring together to build something important for the good of all. Is there a project your community might benefit from that would require many hands and hearts to achieve? How will you go about it, and who can you enlist to help?

Communities, families, schools, workplaces, neighborhoods, and towns grow through communication and interaction. Recognizing a need, drawing in trusted voices to recognize and demonstrate that need to others, engaging others and making them feel welcome in a way that reduces tensions or animosity, and working together to address the need are all keys to building bridges and a better tomorrow.

 

About the Author

Four-time Christy and two-time Carol and INSPY Award–winning author Cathy Gohlke writes novels steeped with inspirational lessons from history. Her stories reveal how people break the chains that bind them and triumph over adversity through faith. When not traveling to historic sites for research, she and her husband, Dan, divide their time between northern Virginia and the Jersey Shore, enjoying time with their grown children and grandchildren.

 

Visit her website at cathygohlke.com and find her on Facebook at CathyGohlkeBooks.

 

 

About A Hundred Crickets Singing

In wars eighty years apart, two young women living on the same Appalachian estate determine to aid soldiers dear to them and fight for justice, no matter the cost.

1944. When a violent storm rips through the Belvidere attic in No Creek, North Carolina, exposing a hidden room and trunk long forgotten, secrets dating back to the Civil War are revealed. Celia Percy, whose family lives and works in the home, suspects the truth could transform the future for her friend Marshall, now fighting overseas, whose ancestors were once enslaved by the Belvidere family. When Marshall’s Army friend, Joe, returns to No Creek with shocking news for Marshall’s family, Celia determines to right a long-standing wrong, whether or not the town is ready for it.

1861. After her mother’s death, Minnie Belvidere works desperately to keep her household running and her family together as North Carolina secedes. Her beloved older brother clings to his Union loyalties, despite grave danger, while her hotheaded younger brother entangles himself and the family’s finances within the Confederacy. As the country and her own home are torn in two, Minnie risks her life and her future in a desperate fight to gain liberty and land for those her parents intended to free, before it’s too late.

With depictions of a small Southern town “reminiscent of writings by Lisa Wingate” (Booklist on Night Bird Calling), Cathy Gohlke delivers a gripping, emotive story about friendship and the enduring promise of justice.

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