The Loner's Search for Community

December 24, 2021

I was thinking lately about how I used to walk to and from school myself. I never was one to join or depend on a group, I guess. I have distinct memories of walking home from high school and being able to stop at the library on the way. I would often just go to the biography section that was all together in the Dewey decimal system of our local library.

This idea of community is something I found briefly in the Jesus movement. I think there was a powerful sense of belonging but gradually I realized I didn't share many of the beliefs and was not interested in following a charismatic leader. When I got to college, the group I thought I was a member of separated themselves from me when they saw that I wasn't buying in to everything. I think at college there was a general sense of community with the small student body though I never thought of myself in those terms it did provide community.

Also remember how much I looked into intentional communities, reading books, magazines and other ways of finding out information before the days of the internet. I had three weeks at Holden village. At the end of that experience I had made arrangements to meet the a family at their farm in West Virginia. While I was there I continued to seek out a future intentional community and may have visited some. I think my next adventure was a long summer job in construction in Illinois. I had access to college bookstores when I traveled while working and I probably picked up some on intentional communities. Somehow I found out about movement for a new society and spent 2 years there. I think how I would have benefited with a little bit more of a mentoring relationship, with someone talking to me about what I was doing and where I was going. Eventually my main community ended up being a Christian church that my spouse attended for most of her life. Now I figure I'll be there for the rest of my life but would like to find a Sangha for extra support and learning and fellowship.