Every Guy Needs A Tribe

We are living in age when our children are described by some psychologists as being, “connected but alone.” Maybe you see this reality playing out in the life of a teenager you care about. A longing for connection but a penetrating insecurity or fear that they are unwanted and unknown. 

​There is nothing more painful than longing for meaningful connection when you feel so desperately isolated.

Did you know the most feared punishment for even the most hardened criminal is solitary confinement? In 2013, over 30,000 inmates at a maximum security prison in California went on a hunger strike in opposition to years and even decades of their state's harsh use of solitary confinement. 

Wired Magazine picked up the news in an article featured last year titled, The Horrible Psychology of Solitary Confinement. The article reads; 

"For 23 hours or more per day, in what’s euphemistically called “administrative segregation” or “special housing,” prisoners are kept in bathroom-sized cells, under fluorescent lights that never shut off. Video surveillance is constant. Social contact is restricted to rare glimpses of other prisoners. The human brain is ill-adapted to such conditions, and activists and some psychologists equate it to torture. Solitary confinement isn’t merely uncomfortable, they say, but such an anathema to human needs that it often drives prisoners mad. In isolation, people become anxious and angry, prone to hallucinations and wild mood swings, and unable to control their impulses. The problems are even worse in people predisposed to mental illness, and can wreak long-lasting changes in prisoners’ minds."

Two populations of our culture (prisons and nursing homes) punctuate the raw necessity of experiencing meaningful human connection. 

The bottom line? We were never meant to live live alone. 

All of creation announces this truth;

• Birds have a flock.
• Cows have a herd.
• Fish have a school.
• Dogs have a pack.
• Dolphins have a pod.
• Ants have a colony.
• Apes have a troop.
• Caterpillars have an army.

From the earliest moments of our origin, we have known our need for companionship. "God said, “It’s not good for the Man to be alone; I’ll make him...a companion.” Genesis 2:18 (MSG)

TRIBE is an opportunity to companion in a new way. We hope you'll consider joining us or passing this along to someone you think might appreciate or benefit from a group like this. ​