J.J. Staples's Page

In what City & State do you live?

Cincinnati, OH

What is your Neighborhood?

Northside

Although A Small Group is currently based in Cincinnati, Ohio, we have friends and fellow community members in Dayton, Columbus, Indianapolis and many other places. Regardless of your location, we invite you to join us. Please tell us a little about your community (or country, for that matter!).

Northside is a neighborhood with varied shops and businesses as well as parks all within walking or easy bicycling distance. There are many artistic, creative and industrious people who live, work and play here. In the 30-odd years since I first was passing through and coming down the hill occasionally to watch the odd art-house film at the Act One Cinema, I think it's become noticeably more diverse.

What is your work? -- NOTE: all of these Q's may be updated any time and may be as brief or as long as you wish.

I'm currently unemployed, but helping friends with renovations and gardening; sometimes I get paid, sometimes I volunteer. For much of this year, I have been working to overcome clutter issues in my apartment and get myself back into shape to find more gainful employment. I am an amateur singer and songwriter by avocation.

What originally brought you to A Small Group? What brought you to this ASG site?

I am interested in practical ways to change society in ways that are more sustainable and fairer, with maximum freedom for individuals. At the same time, I have long been interested in intentional communities and voluntary combinations. I am looking forward to sharing ideas with ASG folks.

With what organizations or groups do you work today?

Industrial Workers of the World, Cincinnati Park Board and various projects undertaken by members and committees of the Northside Community Council.

Anything else you'd like to share about yourself?

I am inordinately pleased that I became a published essayist for the first time since college recently, in an anthology of mostly Northside writers expounding about religion. As someone who was raised as a preacher's kid, this is something I've considered since I was little, although not in a disciplined way, and I haven't really studied religious thought assiduously. What I've came up with, in short, is the notion that heaven isn't so much a place where our souls go when we die as it is a way of being that we're commanded by all the great sages to enact with our fellows and companions.