It started with phones. But really, it started before that. When my husband and I moved to the DC area a few years ago, we were ready to do the slow work of rebuilding community ties – work we were used to as academic nomads.

Little did we know just how rich our community was about to become. Despite the twofold challenge of academic life and living in the DC area – you just start getting to know folks, it seems, and then they graduate or get a new job – we found similar-minded friends and families who also valued faith, family, books, and the arts. They were eager to join us in play readings, music nights (singing folk songs from Americana to Irish), book discussions of Charlotte Mason and Ivan Illich, and read-alouds of David Jones’s Anathemata. Some endeavors were particularly rich: one friend hosted polyphony-and-folk-music nights; a high schooler and a college student teamed up to direct and produce an all-girl performance of The Taming of the Shrew, staged on a neighborhood front porch; and a struggling Catholic parish school was revivified through a classical makeover. Other pursuits became enduring parts of community life: one family runs a small business of teaching others to grow their own victory gardens; another hosts an annual lantern walk for Saint Martin’s Day; and yet another runs a nonprofit home-based daycare for children with disabilities; a thriving listserv for women organizes meal trains, babysitting swaps, and requests for last-minute grocery trips; and homeschool co-op moms take turns teaching nature study, watercolors, calligraphy, military history, Shakespeare, and more to each other’s children.

So when I opined, “We need more neighborly folk dancing nowadays!” I shouldn’t have been surprised when one new friend told me about the Postman Pledge crew, who were about to host their next folk dance night. Inspired by the work of Neil Postman (1931–2003), among others, the families of the Postman Pledge commit to building community bonds while also intentionally limiting their families’ use of digital technology – in particular, children don’t have smartphones or access to social media. And the whole family is expected to practice thoughtful limits for the sake of cultivating “habits of presence and attention” in order to grow in the love of God and others.

This group of families began forming when children’s neighborhood friends were being given smartphones in their preteen years. Suddenly, these kids were left out of the loop of their friends’ communications, and some were even bullied for being phoneless.

There had to be a better way, founders Jeanne and David Schindler figured. But human beings were meant for community; they couldn’t go at it alone. So the Postman Pledge group was born in 2021. The goal, says Jeanne, is “to live as a family more naturally and celebrate all that is good and real with other families aspiring to do the same.”

Saying no to one thing means saying yes to other things. As one mom told me, while “the group came together to reject something, namely phones for kids, it is much more about being for something – a way of living out family life and friendship, seeking beauty together.” She added, “It is incredibly encouraging to come together with other families who want to spend time making our little corner of the world more beautiful with laughter, song, dance, poetry, games, and feasts.” The hope for us parents is “to raise our children to surpass us in virtue and in any way God has gifted them.”

Last Christmas, my family caroled with the Postman Pledge families. As we went from house to house, most lights came from homemade lanterns, and some from flashlights. A tall student, home from college, held out his flip phone to illumine the songbook. Behind him two younger teens, one in soccer shorts, lustily sang “O Come All Ye Faithful.” A younger group of boys huddled around shared sheet music. Between houses, groups of kids ran down the wide streets to the next ones on the schedule. Older teenagers walked along in their own posses, singing their own carols, sometimes in harmony. Over a hundred of us were out caroling that night. At the end, we all gathered at the Schindlers’ for cookies and cider, dancing, and more caroling.

A week earlier we’d gathered for a Dickens-themed Christmas dance. Some came in costume, others simply dressed smartly. The potluck table groaned under the weight of sweet and savory dishes (including lots of hummus). The caller wore a top hat and cravat. Three violinists played interludes during supper. On one margin of the room men congregated at the bar; on another young boys played chase. Fathers danced with daughters and mothers with sons. Some young people danced with siblings or friends, and several were teenage couples. Some girls came in Regency dresses; a mother of four glowed in a Disney-Belle-yellow dress. A few high schoolers sported black top hats. The Fezziwig chapter from A Christmas Carol was read between dance sets.

Dancing together is key, I think: in learning reels and quadrilles, one is also learning how to be a young lady or a young man, and how one ought to treat others with respect and grace – and with a good sense of humor. And everyone dances together (including some with toddlers in arms) in a microcosm of the Great Dance, among neighbors and among all God’s creatures; between men and women, and between God and the soul.