My birthday wish is for you to read this -

For those of you who are not aware,  My small family is taking a big step into uncharted territory this weekend as we leave for our month long adventure.  We are visiting two different intentional communities as visitors and as potential residents.

 The first community,Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, is in Northeast Missouri and as the name implies, they put a large focus on environmental sustainability.  The community is entirely separated from the electrical grid and their electrical power is all produced with solar and wind technology. The group is committed toward a non violent consensus government, and from what I can see from afar. they have an established track record of keeping the peace, and creating a healthy social environment, especially for children.

After a 3 week stay at Dancing Rabbit we'll travel to the Missouri - Arkansas border to visit our second community of the tour - East Wind Community  where we'll stay for a week.  East Wind is also an intentional community with a non violent consensus form of government, but with a vastly different economic model than Dancing Rabbit.  East Wind operates as an income sharing community, where all members finances are more or less collective. They operate a successful organic peanut butter factory and it's revenues provide for the needs of the community - food, shelter, medical insurance, and even a monthly stipend.  In return, members are required to each work about 40 hours a week with jobs not limited to the factory, but include things like cooking meals,  child care, and education.

 There's no way I can tell you everything there is to know about these two communites, but I'm including links where you can check them out for yourself.  Although the websites are not as up to date as facebook might be, we feel like we've chosen places that have shown themselves to be open and up front about how they operate. The by-laws and membership agreements for both Dancing Rabbit and East Wind can be found at thefec.org - the website for the Federation of Egalitarian Communites.   

I'm probably painting too rosy of a picture.  In reality - these are small rural villages, where people poop in buckets to recycle "humanure", use manual labor to work the land for their supper, and eat a lot less meat than this southern boy is used to.  So let me tell you why my family and I have made this decision to test the waters and experiment with a radically different way of life than we are used to.  Perhaps there is something in this story that you can relate to,  and then perhaps begin to understand why I think this may be the smartest thing I will ever do.

Late last summer, a good friend gave me a book; Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne.   In this book the young Christian narrarator expresses his frustation with the modern church and with society in general.  The lack of hypocrisy from this young Christian is what first hit me. He actually quit participating in the money system, and is living in the way he believes Jesus taught.  With shared in common possessions, he and his small group spread their message through their actions, and through their example in their local community.  Shane lives in an urban intentional community in Pennsylavania and as he described his living situation and the community that he was surrounded with , I knew that I needed to find something like that for my family.  

I passed the book on to Jenny, my loving wife, and she burned through it in about 24 hours coming away with much the same feeling.  We each come from very different religious backgrounds, but this book was an excellent conversation starter, highlighting much of the common ground that we've always shared.  Non violence - Respect, Love, and Compassion for our fellow man - Our current economic system being viscously immoral - and most importantly that ....

there is another way.

That was the eye opener and the spark - This young man had found a way to successfully remove himself and the efforts of his labor from the system,  and although not as materially "well-off" as your average evangelist, he is happy,  his needs are met , and his example looked pretty appealing to Jenny and I. At least enough to put the words "intentional community" into Google.

It's fairly obvious to most that we are in the middle of a tremendous shift.  Our economies, our environment, and our social systems themselves are all on the verge of transforming into something quite different.  Our current system is simply unable to sustain itself, and as it begins to crumble away,  the models of the future, which make today's models obsolete,  will begin to show themselves.  I believe places like Dancing Rabbit and East Wind are grand and ambitious experiments into creating those future models.  The successes and failures of these alternative societies will be what we look to as the current system collapses.    

I don't want to be a fear-monger because I don't think the transition out of our system has to be scary.  However, it is more and more evident that prices for food and everything else tied to oil are going up.  As a father, the ability to provide locally grown food for my family is something that is definitely on my mind, and I'm eager to put some seeds in the ground.  If we are able to somehow miraculously change our food distribution networks over to some type of renewable fuel before oil prices go out of control, and no crisis ever occurs,  I'll still feel better about feeding Izzy something healthy that I had a hand in growing.   And that brings me to the most important point of all.  

Isaiah

Our adventure over the next month, and the decisions about how and where we want to live once the trip is over, will be largely guided by a three year old.  (sounded smart till about right there huh?)   There has been nothing in life that has made me as proud or as happy as our son.  Surely nothing else has changed my thinking more than him.   More than anything else, I want to make sure that Izzy is able to have a happy and healthy childhood, with a good education, healthy food and enough of it, and surrounded by people who love and respect him and encourage him to do the same for others.  As I look around at today's consumer culture, where compassion is minimized and competition maximized, that is not what I see.  Hi-tech advertisers who have test marketed and focus grouped the colors in their commercial to maximize their ability to gain a ' mind-share ' of their future consumer, are  almost unavoidable today.  Branding is everywhere from the mall to the library encouraging younger and younger children to equate their social worth to their amount of possessions.   This is not a problem that Congress or some other government agency can just pass a law and fix either.  This is a symptom of an off course society with fundamental problems at the root of it's existence.   

I do not know the answers.  

I wish I did.

In the communities that we are going to visit,  these concerns are at least addressed.  There are happy healthy children who are Izzy's age at both.  They eat locally grown organic food.  They are educated, some at public school and some at home.  They are an important part of a community, even as children,  and the love and respect that comes with that is hard to find.   Isaiah and his feelings will be a huge part of the decision process once this trip is over and we contemplate a permanent move.  My bet is that these are going to be places that our adventurous toddler is going to fall in love with immediately.   Both are on large pieces of land with plenty of room to run, explore, and make mischief.

We leave next Sunday , the 17th, and so we ask for all of your thoughts and prayers for a safe trip.  We'll be keeping a video blog of our travels to share in the future.  Wish us Luck!

Credit to Jeff Lion Forbes at East Wind for the inspiring image here. 

Mac McNulty