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.