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When I was growing up, I thought “community” was strictly a geographical term referring to where we live.

Rockingham County has many small communities that some newcomers don’t realize exist. I live in Bethany. There’s Oregon Hill, Intelligence, Monroeton, Jacobs Creek, Midway, Williamsburg, Huntsville, Matrimony and many others.

I love the names, and I know there must be great stories behind them.

Some have volunteer fire departments, community centers, churches, or schools but many have no physical center and their boundaries exist only in the minds of the people who live there.

I’ve wondered how these communities began but I’ve more often wondered how they still exist. I can only conclude that, in the days before cars made travel easy, these small areas were the centers of residents’ lives. Folks probably didn’t travel outside of them.

My guess is that there were general stores in each where people shopped. We still have Moore’s Grocery and Auto Parts in Bethany. They sell everything from milk to bolts, and they’ll work on your car too. You can have a hamburger next door at Cafe 65 while you wait for your oil change.

Although Bethany isn’t incorporated and residents have different addresses, some Reidsville, some Summerfield, there is a strong sense of belonging.

In addition to Moore’s store, we have a school, fire department, community center, and several churches.

I believe these institutions, or the opportunity the institutions give for gathering people together, contribute to the strong sense of community.

When the school board decided to move the middle school grades from Bethany to Rockingham Middle School in Wentworth, a “Save Our School” committee was quickly formed. The result is the county’s only charter school, Bethany Community Middle School.

But in the past few years, it seems to me that the definition of community is changing. It has come to mean less a place and more something shared. Often it is membership in a group. I frequently hear references to the black or Latino community and the gay and lesbian community. I never hear references to the white community or the heterosexual community. The term lends itself to membership in a minority group .

Humans need to band together when they are in a minority for a sense of sharing and support, just as they once needed to band together to form a society when people were more scattered and fewer in number.

Interests also qualify individuals as members of a community, often online. I’m a member of an online club that meets in real life to canoe and kayak. I am in contact with the other members via the Internet more than I am with our neighbors across the road.

I have a friend who makes homemade soap, and she’s a member of several online soap groups. They never meet. They just share information, ask questions, and give advice. It’s a great resource for her. She found my favorite of her soap fragrances, ginger milk, through an online recommendation.

More and more, the sense of belonging that used to come with living in a place, now comes from sharing something, whether it’s an identity, interest or ideas.

Today, many of us are part of communities of people that we never see and share our thoughts with members who may live half a world away. But I’d still venture to say that 100 years from now, the area where I live will still be Bethany in the minds of all those who live here.

Joni Carter lives in the Bethany community. Contact her at writetojonicarter@gmail.com