Lake County Ohio Weal

  Circles of Friendship Model Robin Dunbar's book,  Friends: Understanding of Power of our Most Important Relationships,  deals with relatives and coworkers as well as friends that we choose.  Dunbar maintains that our number of meaningful relationships is limited both by our cognitive capacity and by time. Dunbar's limit is about 150 which turns up again and again: the average number of people at a wedding, on a holiday greeting list, or in early hunter-gather communities. Meaningful relationships consist of an inner circle about 5 close friends (e.g. spouse, children) with whom we spend about 40% of our quality social time. We usually see them at least once a week. The total amount of time per month averages about 8.5 hours, the equivalent of a workday. These are the people we can depend upon. The next circle consists of about ten best friends who are our sympathy group.  These are people whom we generally see at least once a month. We spend an av...

  Network of Local Communities and Gatherings We are members of multiple communities: households, families, neighborhoods, parishes, workplaces, professions, civic associations, etc. Some of these communities may be strongly Catholic, others nominally Catholic or Christian, and some may have members who are of little or no faith.  “Critical conversations on issues that matter most” will vary widely depending upon the nature of community and the faith of its members.  The resources gatherings may use in addition to Commonweal will also vary. Some may use mostly Catholic resources, others mostly biblical resources, and others mostly secular resources. Therefore, there is no one size fits all model for a Commonweal local gathering.  Anyone who is a subscriber to Commonweal can start their a  CLC in their home, neighborhood, parish, workplace, public library, etc. Commonweal' s generous five articles a month will provide an article a week making possible even we...