Imagine our country as one enormous bolt of cloth. When people refer to the “social fabric” of the country, they have something like this image in mind, an image that says we are much more than links in a chain. We are all of a piece, the way fibers and threads weave together into a textile.

Now imagine what happens when certain national events are ignored. For example, the water crisis in Flint Michigan is not being addressed, which is like cutting that population out of the whole. The Puerto Rican catastrophe from hurricane Maria and the forest fires that destroyed over 11,000 homes in California: lack of concern for these disasters from the current administration has ripped large chunks of the social fabric – real places with real people – and tried to separate them from the whole. Snip, snip. Snip, snip.

Other issues that are turning our whole cloth into tatters include poverty, corporate greed,impoverished public schools, voter suppression, homelessness, drug addiction, misogyny, an unjust prison system, white supremacy, environmental illiteracy, racism and religious bigotry.

Inattention to these large social issues has the same shredding effect on our social fabric as flying a flag in high winds.

The result: distrust of one another. Fear of one another. An inability to see the dignity of people who are being cut off from the whole. A sense of social isolation. Hesitance to reach out in order to understand others. And the consequent destruction of the social fabric.

Now imagine some good news in this department. David Brooks, who is a frequent conservative commentator on news shows, and who writes a syndicated column for the New York Times, discovered something remarkable a few years ago, as he traveled around the country. Everywhere he went, he encountered people who spoke out of a common theme of despair and isolation. And yet, at the same time, everywhere he went he found many people involved in connecting with others, reaching out to others, helping others.

He calls them “the weavers,” because they are working to repair the social fabric wherever it is torn. They weave bits and pieces of social isolation together into a relationship. They gather up the forgotten and the outcast being shredded by the pressure of living out there on the fringes, then they find ways to connect with them, know them as people.

Through the Social Fabric Project, David Brooks and the Aspen Institute have been working to connect weavers all across the country. They look for people who are finding ways to repair our lost sense of togetherness.

Some of them work at organizations: a veteran who helps other veterans with mental illnesses in New Orleans; a guy who runs a boxing gym in Appalachian, Ohio, where he nominally teaches young men boxing, but really teaches them life. Many others do their weaving in the course of everyday life — because that’s what neighbors do. One lady in Florida said she doesn’t have time to volunteer, but that’s because she spends 40 hours a week looking out for local kids and visiting sick folks in the hospital. (David Brooks, “A Nation of Weavers,” NYT, 2/28/19).

Think of the chef, Jose Andres, who went to Puerto Rico on his own after hurricane Maria, and found ways to organize meal distribution to everyone on that devastated island, without electricity, even in mountainous areas where the roads were completely blocked. He served a seemingly impossible 1.5 million meals.

Weavers are very likely at work in your own neighborhood as well. They are running food pantries and cot shelters. They are finding  prom gowns for homeless teens and business clothing for unemployed people about to have an interview. They teach writing and cooking to prisoners, and teach service dog training to veterans.

Weavers are everywhere, doing everything they can think of to do  that will forge connections with others. Weavers want to know others as human beings, regardless of where society may rank them in our misbegotten need to place people above or below ourselves. They deliberately seek ways to replace isolation and division with relationships and connections.

A key law of physics states that, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” The Weavers project is a hopeful sign that in this age of divisive politics, we the people are going about the business of caring about one another. In our own ways. In large numbers.

I went to the web site for “Weave – The Social Fabric Project” to have a look around the activities of this organization. I wanted to know: Is the goal to have everyone volunteer with something? What if you didn’t have the means to contribute much of anything?

The very first article I read set me straight. You don’t need to go anywhere or sign up for anything to be a weaver. You can be a weaver just by talking to others.

The woman who wrote “What Can Happen When You Meet Your Neighbor,” (Shaylyn Romney Garrett, 2/27/19; on the web page of  The Aspen Institute), made a single, very small change in her life. Instead of mindlessly waving and saying hello to a neighbor whose house and driveway were within talking distance, and then ending the encounter and walking into her own house, one day Shaylyn asked her neighbor how she was doing.

And she waited for the answer with sincere interest. The next thing that happened was one of those incredible twists of fate. The neighbor was from Iraq. Shaylyn had lived in Jordan. The neighbor owned the Middle Eastern restaurant in town, where Shaylyn ate frequently. They both spoke Arabic.

Long story short, the connections were many, connections that could be woven into the fabric of a relationship.

It seems there is a very simple rule to guide the process of becoming a weaver: Relate to people. Don’t hold back. Instead of putting out signals that you are uninterested in someone, find a way to signal that you are interested, that you want to know them. Relate. Don’t hold back.

When we stand aloof and apply our ingrained judgments and stereotypes to someone, when we actively barricade ourselves inside our beliefs and preconceptions, we are tearing the social fabric. When we make a genuine effort to get to know someone, to see them as who they really are, we are weaving the social fabric.

People may act as if they want to be separate from others, but we yearn to belong. (Ruth Zardo’s character in Louise Penney’s detective novels, is the epitome of this interplay between oddity and unity). Instead of living in a divisive world, weavers live in a world of connection. Where there is separation, weavers repair – sometimes with a simple, “Hello!” followed by a sincere, “How are you?”

Once we are willing to connect, willing to genuinely know people, that changes everything. For both of us.