Elder and wiser

Nearly a decade before Robert Putnam's groundbreaking 2000 book "Bowling Alone" became a cautionary tale about our increasingly disconnected society, Eric Utne of Minneapolis was talking about the very same need to reach out to one another the old-fashioned way, neighbor to neighbor -- and not just talking, but doing. In 1991, Utne, who founded the Utne Reader seven years earlier, proposed the creation of neighborhood "salons," in which readers could gather with others in their ZIP codes to preserve "the endangered art of conversation and start a revolution in their living rooms." The radical idea took off like wildfire, with more than 10,000 responses and 500 salons set up across the United States.

Now 61 and a grandfather, Utne is back and more charged than ever. We asked him about his new vision for Community Earth Councils (CEC), which bring "elders" (50 and older) together with "youngers" (ages 16-28).

Q Your vision for neighborhood salons became a huge success. But is a similar goal still possible in our txt-msg world?

A Even more so today. People are social. You might say we're all party animals. I think people just naturally crave community. In this era of electronic communication, Web-based social networks like MySpace and Facebook can facilitate connection and community-building, but they can't replace real, place-based, face-to-face community. There's a campus Earth Council being started by students at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, and another in the Dinkytown area being started by a group of University of Minnesota students and retired professors. We're hoping to see 10 or 20 CECs start in the Twin Cities in the next six months, and 50 to 100 more across North America in the next year.

Q The councils' mission is to tap into the wisdom of community elders as a way to address local and global environmental problems. What makes you think that our youth-obsessed culture will listen?

A We're not trying to tap into the wisdom of community elders and get young people to listen. That's backwards. We elders are the ones who need to learn how to listen. Young people need to be seen and heard.

We elders made the mess we're in, and we need the younger generations to help us turn things around. In most indigenous cultures, elders are respected because they play an important role. Their job is to listen to the young and help them to identify their unique gifts, learn tasks and find their place in the community.

Terry Mollner, author and founder of the Trusteeship Institute Inc., a think tank focused on developing socially responsible businesses, defines eldering as "helping another person move to his or her next level of maturity." By his definition, a younger person can elder (or mentor) an older person just as well as the other way around. We're all in this together, youngers and elders, stumbling and groping and trying to find our way, and we need each other's help if we are going to leave a habitable planet for future generations.

Q We seem obsessed at the moment with $4-a-gallon gasoline. What do you wish we were obsessed about?

A $4-a-gallon gasoline is not a bad thing to be obsessed about, if it leads to fundamentally rethinking the way we live. It's an opportunity for change.

The idea for Community Earth Councils came out of wanting to find ways that neighbors could come together to address the social and environmental challenges we face and build a sense of community in the process. Linden Hills Power & Light, which is one of our antecedents and inspirations, just persuaded the city of Minneapolis to collect organic waste like food scraps and pizza boxes from 4,000 homes and hopes to eventually turn it into biofuel. This is our shining example of what a group of concerned citizens can do.

Q Do you have a Facebook page?

A Yes, but I don't use Fun Wall, because I'm a curmudgeon.

Q If you had to shrink all you've learned in life and love into a single sentence for your four grown sons and one grandson, what would it be?

A Find, feel and follow your heart, and I'll get back to you. The latter is a cruder way of saying what my hero Benjamin Franklin wrote for his epitaph, "The body of B. Franklin, Printer, (Like the Cover of an Old Book, Its Contents torn Out, And Stript of its Lettering and Gilding), Lies Here, Food for Worms. But the Work shall not be Lost; For it will (as he Believ'd) Appear once More, In a New and More Elegant Edition, Revised and Corrected, By the Author."

Gail Rosenblum • 612-673-7350