Months ago, Jacob and I spent a decent amount of time working on some ideas regarding "intentional community." How is it created? How is it sustained? How is it contextualized in different living & cultural environments, e.g., rural vs. suburban vs. urban? To keep things simple, our thoughts were confined to the context of the U.S., but I'm thinking most of the conclusions can be applied across most borders and cultures...
A singular question has been running through my mind for a few years now, and I think we've talked about it here & there at EmDes:
What are the ingredients of Community?
And when I say "Community" I'm referring to the sort of experience that David recounted about his grandmother and what Joy termed as an "innate part of our humanity." The sort of connection with other people that fulfills something at our personal core.
After scribbling at the whiteboard in my garage for a while, this is the condensed version of what Jacob & I concluded:
There isn't really any order intended in this list except for the two items above the line: Proximity & Commitment. Those two seemed foundational to achieving the depth of connection that we're talking about. There's a lot that could be said about each aspect of this "recipe", but I don't want this post to get too long.
What do you think about these ingredients?
5 comments:
Erik Guzman, AKA the Merry Monk wrote this in his post regarding community over @ Communitascollective.com. I think it's absolutely true...
"Bottom line? I still don’t know where I belong when it comes to “church,” but I have learned how to tell when I’m experiencing real community. Short answer…it hurts. The people closest to us cause us the most pain. Wanna know who you’re in community with? Follow the arguments and anger and division and loneliness and, well…pain. Follow the pain.
Sure, if you’re willing to be unconditional with people and get through the pain, there’s also great joy and peace and a sense of belonging. I haven’t found many people who can be unconditional and get past the pain and on to the good stuff, but I’ve found a few."
When I think of community, I think of Nepal. I think of families living out their whole lives in a one mile square block. Men worked in shops below there houses with their neighbors. Women raised their children sitting on the front porch chatting with other women. The groceries were a few houses over. Church was just a five minute walk away. Proximity was crucial.
I think that's one of my biggest frustrations with intentionally trying to find community. I have to schedule it. I have to do dishes, do laundry, get the kids to their activities, go grocery shopping, go to work, and find a slot for my "community building" time. I have to drive miles to get to it. It only happens between this time and this time. It's an item on my to-do list verses something that surrounds everything I already do. I want to walk out my front door and arrive in my community.
I hate that that's virtually impossible because of the way we've built our society here in the U.S.
Sorry, not entirely about the list. But, I did work in proximity.
Oh Tasia, I think you hit on what's been bothering me for a long time. I've said before that I'm not sure it can be done (very well) in a suburban context, and since then I've been more and more convinced that it is not. I can't stand when we miss EmDes, and yet what I'm really at odds with is the distance itself. Though if I lived near the Schroeder's I would be a home-brewed-addicted alcoholic, and Jim would be annoyed at his ever decreasing supply...
That said, what we have at EmDes is the closest I've ever come to experiencing the joy and pain that Joy speaks of; what church should be. In fact this very community pushes me to seek out further how good community can get.
How far away we live from people we desire community with is a real problem especially if community is enhanced by getting together more than once a week...which I am sure it is. Proximity matters in connection to the frequency/amt of time we are ultimately able to invest towards cultivating relationship.
Maybe in our culture...more than proximity...it's our busyness we struggle with the most? It's a fact that most people work many miles from home...and then have to invest extra hours on their work after hours.
Besides that, most of us have kids we feel obligated to enroll in all manner of extra curricular activities that pull at us and gobble up any margin of free time we might other wise have. I always feel selfish and like a shitty parent when my kids aren't involved in 'something' (X4)
Of course we are moderns and there are so many other things that call to us...good and appropriate things we know we must do or accomplish to open doors of opportunity as well as add value and meaning to our lives...These also require time and energy. This isn't an indictment...it's just truth.
In the past, busyness has been the main thing that has made deeper and consistent community a lower priority for our family. We simply couldn't do it...we were spread too thin. I imagine that distance wouldn't be as insurmountable if all of the above issues weren't inescapable realities.
Today, I am giving up on the idea of having proximal community...and I am trading it for the reality of the community I already have...EmDes is part of that. I absolutely love the tangible, part of my community...
Maybe it's my age, the fact that I am part of a family of 6...or maybe it's exhaustion with having tried to overcome proximity issues in the past...but, I've decided that anyone who feeds my soul or spirit...who will be vulnerable and honest...as well present intellectually and emotionally is community for me.
So what I'm hearing everyone say is that we should start building onto The Schroeder's house. Start our compound, etc.
Post a Comment