At the heart of community is forgiveness.

Last month's issue of Relevant included an article by Matt Conner entitled, "I Live With Another Man's Wife."  Conner, his wife, and three other married couples live together in an old historic home in the Midwest.  Their church moved into a building on the "wrong side of the tracks" and after reading John Perkins' Beyond Charity, they decided to move along with it.  Perkins claims in his book that "for real reconciliation to take place, relocation must be involved.  You can't help the poor if you don't know them.  You can't provide an answer if you don't know the real questions being asked."  

Conner writes, "In this economic climate, and with my job as a part-time pastor, it also helped that my wife and I could live for a few hundred bucks a month--which includes everything from groceries to Internet access.  In our scenario, each couple pays the same amount over what we need, giving us a monthly grant to give away to a neighbor in need or a nonprofit....Communal living has provided our group the ability to be generous.  And even though I enjoy a wonderfully healthy marriage, here are moments when outside support is necessary for my role as a pastor and as a regular person.  Within our house, we've enjoyed times of singing together, impromptu prayer sessions and accountability.  Some serious hardships have surprised a few in the house, and having close, committed relationships at arm's length eases the pain and provides perspective.  Communal living extends a web of spiritual and emotional support, reminding us we're in this mission together.  After weighing all these options, it made more sense for us to live together than alone.  Values of simplicity and community firmly take root in such an environment.  One lawn mower rather than four.  One blender, one toaster, one dining table.  There's a freedom in giving the rest away, a commercial liberation of the soul.  It all sounded so good, so wonderful...."

He then goes on to talk about the challenges of living in a community like this.  One he mentions is the way in which it exposes the weaknesses of those living within the community.  "In those moments where others have seen me for who I really am, I want to take all my stuff back--my privacy, my belongings, my rights, my entitlements.  My previous life allowed me some level of comfort, a curtain for me to be the Wizard of my own Oz.  Communal living strips me of all of this, leaving an open wound of my insecurities, sins and fears."

But, "community is built on forgiveness...when forgiveness flows within the community, the individuals within finally come alive."  Conner emphasizes that it's in the mundane routine of their lives that the love in their community shines--purely in day to day coexistence, of using each other's stuff, of daily lessons on ownership.  "It's in the unglamorous, boring routine that your heart really begins to change.  I had a different mindset when we first began--believing that living together with other Christians in the same life stage would lead to all-night talks about how church should really be and how we would inspire on another toward our goals and dreams in ways that living alone wouldn't allow for.  But I was wrong--about a lot of things.  I had no idea how selfish I could be and how hard specific parts of my heart were.  I didn't know I could be loved and forgiven in such deep, meaningful ways.  And I also didn't realize there could be such joy in sharing life so intimately with others."  

I liked this article because of it's honesty.  He doesn't glorify the way they live together or gloss over the challenges they face, and I found his words on forgiveness the most important.  When we forgive, we serve as a reflection of God's love.  Christ is love.  Christ is forgiveness.  Christ is unity.  

"For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations.  His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.  He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.  For through him we both have access to the Father by on Spirit.  Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.  In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.  And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. "  -- Ephesians 2:14-22

much love

-Ellen

I need from dream fueling and illusion puncturing

A book I'm looking forward to getting when I get home is Culture Making: Recovering our Creative Calling , by Andy Crouch.


Here is Crouch's summary paragraph:

So do you want to make culture? Find a community, a small group who can lovingly fuel your dreams and puncture your illusions. Find friends and form a family who are willing to see grace at work in another's lives, who can discern together which gifts and which crosses each has been called to bear. Find people who have a holy respect for power and a holy willingness to spend their power alongside the powerless. Find some partners in the wild and wonderful world beyond church doors. 263


If you are interested in reading the full review you can find it here.

Let's move

Amen. Thoughts on Kenya? I can get us 4 acres for less than $5000. I'm deadly serious. Think maasia, open land, lots of safety, 1 hour from Nairobi. Find me the money and I'll have it by the end of the year. Peace.

Vonnegut quote (from Playboy interview 1973)

"I couldn't survive my own pessimism if I didn't have some kind of sunny little dream. ... Human beings will be happier — not when they cure cancer or get to Mars or eliminate racial prejudice or flush Lake Erie — but when they find ways to inhabit primitive communities again. That’s my utopia. That's what I want for me"

Some more ideas

I have been talking with an environmental architect and she has given me some good ideas. I want to know what y'all think after you check out these links, especially Blair, our construction expert. Also, where do folks stand on locales and vocation?
http://www.mat.org.za/
http://www.dancingrabbit.org/building/straw_bale.php
http://www.kleiwerks.org/
http://www.econest.com/building_design.htm

Undergound Houses

Just some more ideas. http://www.undergroundhousing.com/structures.html

Cohousing

Cohousing seems to be on the rise, notably in Colorado and California.  The Cohousing Association of America has an interesting website along with a directory of cohousing communities in the country (there are two listed in Georgia).  Along with their cohousing communities, Boulder, Colorado (with their progressive local government) has a project for certain housing to be "permanently affordable."  

The possible rebirth of Clay County

I have been thinking a lot about where we could live and be a huge progressive force in a community, equipping poverty stricken and hopeless individuals to better their lives and the lives of their brothers and sisters. In this Fort Gaines, Georgia keeps coming to mind. This is a tiny town in the poorest county in Georgia and one I am well acquainted with as my family goes way back in this community and I still go there a few times a year.
I have spoken with most of you about this but I want to post some information on the community to see what you think. Read it, pray about it and comment.

• Clay County Economic Indicators
• Take note of the Demographics and Employment growth (-11.8%)

• Fort Gaines
  
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Gaines,_Georgia
  
• Fort Gaines Presbyterian Church
• Clay County Board of Commissioners
  

I talked with Blair a bit about the possibility of buying a cheap large antebellum home in the "downtown" which is falling about and fixing it up as a community home. This is a town which hope, energy, and education can change things immensely for the better.

Focus

Thanks to Blair, Ellen, and Drew for what they have written. I am new to blogging, and so if this gets posted it will be a miracle in itself.

I agree that there has to be a tight focus and organization to make a commune work, but I think that can be almost secondary as long as there is strong commitment to the cause that holds the commune together, whether that focus be house-building, education, or health care (hospice, etc.) Once everyone shares the common action and a common faith, I think the lifestyle issues become easier. I am not sure about the height of the grass, but certainly simple eating works!

I know that I want to make this kind of commitment. I only hope it is not too late for me.

So, I hope we can be concrete and real about it. No pipe dreams.

Thanks to you all.

Just another example...

Over the week I was in Gulfport, MS with the other Americorps working with Habitat for Humanity and the Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Project. I was specifically rehabbing a house in a neighborhood called Forest Heights I think. Extraordinary people, but it is a community where, when being developed 30 or so years ago, they had specific criteria for living there in the spirit of intentional community. I think the specifics included big stuff like the head of the house having a full time job, all the way to the grass couldn't be higher than 3 inches. I suppose it is as much a organized community as an intentional community, but the spokeswoman listed off occupations of some of the children who grew up there and I would say they produce citizens who end up heads and tails above most people coming out of similar economic backgrounds, or any background for that matter.
Now that is written out I am now sure that was worth typing, but I'm just sharing my most recent intentional community experiences.

More

While we're on the subject of land/farming/food, I'd like to mention the Mennonites. In 1974, the Mennonite Central Committee published a cookbook called More-With-Less. This book did not only contain recipes, but also included "hundreds of spiritual reflections and practical tidbits about eating more simply." In the 1970s, an energy and global food crisis affected much of the world (sound familiar?). The book encourages Americans (those who consume consume consume), to use less so others could eat enough. I know this is small, and it's just a cookbook, but I think the mission of the MCC is still relevant. Check out their website and their Biblical Values and Principles for Global Economic Policies.

The issue of land

This is an interesting article on getting land for organic farming.