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in this vast country to the Industrial Revolution in the late 1700s that forced small villages of farmers and their families to fence their properties and become factory workers in big cities, [12] we have been on a downward spiral, away from community.
    Loneliness first began to show up in a significant way at the rise of the Industrial Revolution. [13] When factories automated everything, people’s lives became easier and more self-reliant. But efficiency came at a great cost; namely, we didn’t need each other all the time.
    I should mention here that a full 80 percent of the world’s population still exists in the context of small, community-based groups—villages, you might call them—where what’s mine is always ours. [14] But for those of us here in the West, life doesn’t look like that.
    Likely springing from the Enlightenment’s focus on individualism, the self-help movement of the late twentieth century set personal happiness as the ultimate prize. [15] And then came the birth of social media in 1997, which rewards with “likes,” personal-branding continuity, and snarky one-upmanship.
    Independence has become the chief value in this country.
    We are brainwashed that “being a self-made woman” (or man), “making our own way,” and striving for “personal achievement” are the goals of our brief, beautiful lives. For generations now, we have taken the bait, believing that siloed, individualistic, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps living will somehow satisfy in the end.
    And yet the book I base my life on, as well as the God who built us, starts the whole, big story with these two lines:
    “Let us create man in our image.”
    “It is not good for man to be alone.”
    And deep down inside, we know this to be true.
    We are meant to live in community, moment by moment, breath by breath. Not once a week or once a month at a night out with friends or during lunch after emerging from an isolated cubical.
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    But every moment, every day, for the entirety of our lives.
    So how the heck are we supposed to fight terrifying stats of loneliness, the devil and his plan to sabotage connection, and the fundamental way that society is set up, and instead build what God cares most about?
    It’s going to take a village. You know the saying, “It takes a village to raise a child.” Well, it takes a village to create a full and thriving life for us adults too.
    But this village living will not happen by accident.
    We’ll have to build a new life.

3.
A VISION FOR SOMETHING MORE
     
    IN 2017, AFTER LIVING FOR more than a decade in the same place, my family decided to move to Dallas, Texas. “After eleven years in a city we love,” I wrote in a post online, “we are moving from Austin, Texas, to Dallas…. In the last week, doors closed with schooling for our youngest two, who have learning differences. So, faced with spreading our family all over the city of Austin in three different schools, we chose instead to pull everyone in close and to move near family.”
    The post was all true. But it was also incomplete. Yes, the school issue had become a real dilemma. But it also just felt like the sprawling nature of Austin was not working for us anymore. We never saw some of our most beloved friends, and our extended family lived too far away for us to get together on a regular basis. Even with all the amazing people we loved in Austin, we still felt lonely. Would a move help?
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    When I told one of my family members about our plans, she both celebrated our decision and forecast the doom I feared: “I think your kids will be fine, Jennie. I just worry about you. I’m afraid you’ll be lonely starting over in such a big city.”
    I swallowed hard and reupped my commitment to this plan. Zac’s job and my organization could move. And even if they couldn’t, we were craving a new way to live that transcended our jobs and house size. We were ready to see if we could build a life around people.
    Now,