Intentional Community

I've been reading a lot about intentional communities lately. There was one featured in the newspaper a few days ago about a group who began a community in Toronto. After leaving school, they felt disconnected and wanted to form a community of people who loved them. Another friend who I met while volunteering in London also lived in an intentional community and loved it. While looking at these communities and how great it must feel to a part of them, I wonder how it is that we have become so disconnected in society.

A hundred years ago life was part of a family and part of a community. Where you lived determined so much in your life and there was always someone who knew your name. It was more common to walk next door to borrow a cup of sugar or some tea. Now, I couldn't even tell you the names of my neighbours. I never see them. Well, partially true. When I live at work, Peggy lives next door. She's the kind of woman that you can say everyone loves and it would be true. She's 89 and incredible. Her garden would rival many that have multiple caretakers and she does all the work herself. She was working two days after she had surgery last summer and recovered very well. I know her. But in my other homes, I have no idea. I'm going to try and learn the names of those who live near my in the apartment, but I doubt it. We have gone to such great lengths to shut ourselves off from each other, to make space for ourselves. It's strange that the one thing we lose during this process is the one thing we really need. Community.

There seems to be a longing in many of us to truly know others and similarly be known by them. We want to feel connected, to be able to come home to people who truly care about us. Maybe that's why intentional communities have become more popular in the recent past. When we no longer are receiving what we need from mainstream society, we set out to get it ourselves. I was never more reminded of this than a few minutes ago.

I'm sitting on the roof at the home I live in and work in. It is a part of L'arche Daybreak, a community formed around the love and respect of those who have mental and physical disabilities. I'm taking my time away for the day as weekends can be long here. This is one of my favourite places in the house because it is calm, I can see the park and I can hear the pond next door. I'm also still a part of the house though. Another assistant just came and brought me some form of vanilla latte made out of milk and tea leaves. It may be one of the msot disgusting things I have ever tried, but I'm drinking it anyways. It reminds me of one of the many reasons I am a part of the community here.

On my days away, I'm always asked when I'm going to be back. That's great for me. It lets me know I will be missed and I'm always celebrated when I return. I seem to have trouble staying away for too long.

There are many communities in the world. Some are inevitable - work, school, family. There are also the intentional ones, the ones we choose and the ones we connect to. I'm not sure which is more powerful, the families we are born into or the families we choose to create. Hereditary family has become something more and more disconnected over the past years. Children don't talk to parents and parents don't listen to children. There is very little connecting many of us now. Perhaps that's why many of us begin to choose our own families. We choose to find people who share the same interests and genuinely care about us. (This also happens with those who are close to their families and have the great capacity to care - my case) Some of the communities we choose to belong to are not healthy for us, such as gangs or cults. Those seek to strip away the individuality everyone brings to the group and consolidate everyone together. That's not family and that's not community.

The great part about intentional community is creating another family for whatever reason we feel we need one. It may be because we care or we need someone to come home to at night who does. For me, this is always a powerful experience. No matter how much we think we don't need other people around, when we are truly welcomed into someone else's live, we can't help but be touched and changed. Creating our own family allows us the chance to choose and at the same time we don't. We can choose to become a part of the community some of the time, but other times we just get sucked in. Last summer I held back. I didn't want to care so much that I couldn't leave. I wanted to be able to have a career after this summer job that would allow me to have certain freedoms and power. I thought I had a choice. Now I realize I don't. A part of my heart will always be here, whether I want it to or not.

I intentionally chose to join the community I live in. In doing so, I made myself a part of this community and also a wider one. I became more aware of the needs of those around me and also my own needs. I intentionally held part of myself back last summer, but then I realized something. Finding a place you belong is never something you intend. It's simply something you find.