Daily Archives: February 27, 2020

Im twenty six years old, and I have never lived alone.

I grew up in boarding schools and community centers, and when I left home for college overseas, I found myself jumping from one shared living arrangement to the next. I admit, part of me wanted to save money, but also, I didnt want to be all by myself.

Well, these past two years, my housing situation has been quite different, but not in the way I expected: For the first time in my life, I shared a house with friends who happened to share my own social and environmental concerns. It felt more possible (if not, more hopeful) to live sustainably, in the face of overwhelming scientific and economic realities.

Together, we recycled, carpooled when we could, repurposed old shirts as napkins, split a CSA box, started a compost, and even tried our hand at square foot gardening. We joked about calling our house the green-house and one day starting our own tiny house community. My handyman housemate even started drawing up plans for a tiny house.

Id serendipitously fallen into an accidentalintentional community.

Youve probably heard these terms floating aroundintentional community, ecovillage, commune, housing cooperativesbut what do they mean? What exactly is an intentional community anyway?

For starters, its not just a commune or a hippie house.

According to the Fellowship for Intentional Community (FIC), an intentional community refers to any custom-made community. Intentional community is an umbrella term that includes ecovillages, cohousing, residential land trusts, income-sharing communes, student co-ops, spiritual communities, and other projects where people live together on the basis of explicit common values.

Whether the communitys binding purpose is environmental responsibility, religious, political, or spiritual beliefs, social activism, the arts, or being a good neighbor, intentional communities commit to varying degrees of a shared, sustainableand often countercultural lifestyle. (So, okay, a commune is an intentional community, but an intentional community is not always a commune.)

The FIC directory lists 1,759 forming and established intentional communities spread across every American state and Puerto Rico. Turns out, I live near a few.

So, with my roommate in tow, I checked out a cohousing community called Blueberry Hill Cohousing Community in Vienna, Virginia, a small, picturesque neighborhood nestled in an unlikely suburban spot: a short drive from the mega-mall, Tysons Corner, and bordered on one side by McMansions and a farm on the other.

Cohousing is legally and financially identical toa condominium associationits a private home ownership collective, and they have a board of directors, no shared income, and no special tax breaksexcept that residents actively participate in the planning of the community. Sure, some cohousing communities might also have mandatory resident meetings, shared meals, and chores, but every community does it differently.

The day we visited Blueberry Hill, it was warm, humid, and Betsy, one of the original residents at Blueberry Hill, welcomed us wearing shorts and a faded t-shirt, sporting the word: Smile. We parked on the outskirts of the neighborhood, next to the common house, a shared facility where residents have community meals, gatherings, and access to things like games and movies.

The homes were clustered, with kitchens facing out onto the neighborhood. And as Betsy gave us the tour across the pedestrian-only paths connecting the homes, we ducked in and out of the homes, and said hello to a few residents who were enjoying the summer afternoon on their wrap-around porches.

When I spoke to Ann Zabaldo, former president of the Cohousing Association of the US, she pointed out these same architectural principles in her own community at Takoma Village Cohousing in the DC metropolitan area. These principles help increase the incidental interplay that builds the bonds between communitiesneighbors you interact with because you run into them on the way to your car, or because you see them walk home from work.

In turn, this connection facilitates the sharing economy that can mean everything from the ability to stay longer in your homes as you age, to readily available caregiving and babysitting resources for busy parents, or for Ann, a writer and wheelchairuser, something as simple as the ability to have her neighbor pop by real quick to change a lightbulb she cant reach.

Anns lived in community most her life, and for all the challenges that come with living in communityor any human relationship, for that mattershe still loves it. Its Mardi Gras everyday, she tells me, and laughs.

Here are some things to consider before you apply to live in an intentional community.

What do you care most about? How can living in community help enhance your personal goals?

There are so many communities out there, each with different intentions and expectations, whether its an ecovillage like Headwaters Garden and Learning Center in Vermont, where sustainable developmentor what owner, developer, and founder, Gwendolyn Hallsmith, calls meeting human needs today without harming the needs of tomorrows generationis the driving force; or Koinonia Farm, a Christian intentional community in Georgia, which aims to embody peacemaking, sustainability, and radical sharing.

A great place to start is the Fellowship of Intentional Communities directory. What state do you want to live in? Do you want to live in a rural, urban, or suburban setting? How much independence do you want versus community? The FIC directory will give you everything from basic demographic information to community expectations and practices.

Most places will strongly recommend this, as it will give you a feel for the place. Some places might even require a trial run period, to see if you are a good fit.

Are you able to get along with people you dont like? Do you cope well with change? Some people make the mistake of thinking that intentional communities come with a built-in best-friend network, and most of the time, thats simply not the case. Choose an intentional community that serves you where you are in life right now, and not simply where you think you should be. Intentional communities arent for everyone, and thats okay.

Our lease is coming to an end and Ive been slowly boxing up my room. My housemate broke down the square foot garden the other day, too, which made me sad. Living intentionally was wonderful in so many ways,but Ill admit, its also no easier than living anywhere else.

Over the past two years, Ive learned what it looks like to be accountable for my beliefs on a day-to-day basisand I have my intentional community to thank for that.

Update, June 30, 2015: A previous version of this article stated that cohousing communities were similar to condominium associations, when in fact cohousing communities are legally and financially identical to condominum associations. The article has been updated to reflect this change.

Ah-reum Han was born in South Korea, but bred on the sandy savannas of West Africa. Shes been to five different continents, but learned to keep her feet still long enough to get her B.A. in Creative Writing and Cross-cultural Sociology from Carson-Newman University and her M.F.A.in fiction fromGeorge Mason University.

Read more:

I Stumbled Into an Intentional Community. Heres What I ...

In the March issue of The Atlantic, David Brooks writes a provocative and compelling article about the nuclear family and how it was a huge mistake.

He summarizes the changes in family structure over the past century, saying: "We've made life freer for individuals and more unstable for families. We've made life better for adults but worse for children. We've moved from big, interconnected and extended families, which helped protect the most vulnerable people in society from the shocks of life, to smaller detached nuclear families (a married couple and their children), which give the most privileged people in society room to maximize their talents and expand their options. The shift from bigger and interconnected extended families to smaller and detached nuclear families ultimately led to a familiar system that liberates the rich and ravages the working class and the poor."

Brooks lists many cons of the nuclear family, including the absence of extended family to function as a safety net when challenges arise, the socializing force of having extended family close by and lack of resilience.

On the surface, one might conclude that he is onto something, which he may well be, but the question is: Is the nuclear family really the problem, or is there something else at play?

Scott Stanley, research professor at the University of Denver, questions whether the nuclear family is the real villain in Brooks' article.

"Disconnection and isolation are his real targets," writes Stanley. "To me, the nuclear family seems like a passenger along for the ride in a car leaving the scene of the crimes Brooks describes when the car is driven by us. By us, I mean most of us, motivated for our desires for autonomy and freedom." He continues, "A lot of the problems we see may be caused by what most people want even if those things also have downsides for individuals and society.

In another response, Kay Hymowitz, William E. Simon Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, takes a look back in time and finds that scholars basically agree that the nuclear family household has been the "dominant form" in Western Europe and the United States since the dawn of the industrial era the anomaly was the extended family, not the nuclear family.

"As demographics changed, the dominant family form did not," writes Hymowitz. "Rising life expectancy and falling fertility starting in the latter half of the 19th century meant more surviving grandparents available for smaller numbers of couple households. But the share of households with extended families stayed more or less the same. It seems that people preferred the privacy and independence of the nuclear form despite all its disadvantages."

Bottom line, what Brooks seems to be espousing is that in order for children and adults to really thrive, we need to bring back the extended family, whether people are actually related or not.

Brooks suggests there are plenty of examples of those who have moved from nuclear families to forged families. He gave Common as an example, which is a real-estate development company that operates more than 25 co-housing communities where young singles can live in separate sleeping spaces with shared communal areas.

The big question is: Does this really address the problem Brooks' narrative highlights disconnection and isolation? There is nothing legally binding that keeps the people in these communities from coming and going. People move for various reasons job transitions, marriage, divorce, etc., so it still doesn't address the root problem.

In general, human beings are relational by nature and thrive on connectedness. How do we, whatever our family form looks like, create intentional community in a society that seems to have a strong bent toward isolation?

Regardless of your situation, people have to be deliberate and persistent about building a tribe around them that will create the safety net extended families might fill. In the past, communities of faith often helped to fill this void, and it is still true today for those who choose to be active in a community. Neighbors can also help create a safety net, but one has to be willing to establish and maintain relationships with those around them. School and work present opportunities as well for connection and networking to build your community.

Perhaps you are fortunate enough to have vast social capital. Chances are pretty great that there are people around you who don't. As a part of a larger community, we all have some responsibility to help others connect if we really are about helping people thrive.

Julie Baumgardner is president and CEO of family advocacy nonprofit First Things First. Email her at julieb@firstthings.org.

Link:

First Things First: The nuclear family was a mistake - Chattanooga Times Free Press

Suicide is a complicated subject with no easily identifiable, one-size-fits-all solution but that hasnt stopped communities all over the country from making meaningful strides to help those citizens who would intentionally self-harm.

By Megan Wells

Suicide is the 10th most common cause of death in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In 2017, 14 out of every 100,000 Americans died by suicide, though there were a reported 1,400,000 suicide attempts that year. In 2018, suicide accounted for 48,344 total deaths in the U.S.

The statistics around intentional self-harm are alarming, especially because they are increasing year-over-year (for nearly two decades). From 1999 to present, suicide rates have jumped 33%, rising to the highest rate the U.S. has seen since World War II.

When it comes to discussing the cause of suicide, many misconceptions hinder our ability to develop helpful resources for our communities.

Specifically, its often assumed that those at greatest risk have been diagnosed with serious mental health conditions that can lead to suicidal ideation like major depression, PTSD or schizophrenia but research suggests otherwise. In fact, 54% of people who die by suicide do not have a known mental health condition, according to research by the CDC.

Rather, a myriad of factors can put a person at a higher risk for suicide, either in the short term or over time:

There is increasing evidence that social media use can influence suicide-related behavior as well.

Often, what we know about a suicide motive comes from a coroner, medical examiner or law enforcement report, where the entirety of evidence isnt known, leaving friends, family and communities with more unanswered questions than otherwise.

Still, with the data we do have, patterns in triggers and demographics begin to emerge. And though the conversation about why suicide is becoming more widespread is a difficult one, its critical to consider if were going to create more effective suicide prevention programs and resources.

Since 1999, suicide rates have increased in every U.S. state except for Nevada, with some states showing alarmingly high increases. North Dakota, for example, has experienced a 57.6% increase in self-inflicted fatalities over the last 17 years.

Geographically speaking, CDC data shows that there are differences in suicide rates across three urbanization levels:

Using joinpoint regression analyses, one CDC study determined that rural counties have the highest rates of suicide of the three populous groups, though each urbanization level showed an uptick year-over-year.

Suicide occurs across all demographics, and mental illness is not the only catalyst to consider.

Research uncovers many patterns that should be considered before determining how to help your community:

Of course, suicide shouldnt be looked at in terms of mere statistics; its important to go beyond the demographics and consider other contributing factors that can impact the emotional wellbeing of communities.

We all face crises or problems, writes former Harvard Health Executive Editor Patrick J. Skerrett. One difference is that among individuals who take their own lives, these situations cause such pain or hopelessness they cant see any other way out.

In rural areas, for example, mental health experts are closely looking into the economic and environmental factors that have caused stress and lost hope in these communities.

Rural farmers in particular are experiencing an uptick in financial, personal and professional stress in several ways:

And all of these factors add up to a disconcerting commonality: skyrocketing debt.

A 2013 study published in the journal Clinical Psychology Review shows that debt and financial stress may be common catalysts for suicide. The study found that though causality is hard to establish, the more severe debt a person had, the worse their health. And those who died by suicide were eight times more likely to be in debt.

Gerald Roecker, a third-generation farmer in Loganville, Wisconsin, knew this feeling all too well. Roecker said he became suicidal in 2008 when the recession hit after he had invested millions to expand the family business.

Thankfully, though, the plight of farmers isnt getting left unnoticed. In October, the U.S. Department of Agriculture provided grants, totaling $1.9 million, for stress assistance programs to people in agriculture. President Trump also signed a bill in 2018 dedicated to supporting mental health research in rural areas.

But there is still much to be done at the local level.

The story of agricultural workers isnt the only one to tell: The opioid epidemic is one more chapter in the devastating novel of increased suicide rates.

A study conducted by the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs found that suicides involving opioids constituted 4.3% of all suicides in 2014 and were involved in more than 40% of suicide and overdose deaths in 2017. Its also important to note that opioid use which can cause or worsen depression is statistically more widespread in rural communities than in urban ones.

Theres also research that suggests that children who grow up in poverty are more likely to die by suicide.

Professional stress in public safety roles is likewise leading to an increase in suicide within its ranks in 2017, more firefighters and police officers died by their own hands than they did in the line of duty.

And Id be remiss if I didnt mention the alarming rate of inmate suicides that are increasingly making headlines.

Sadly, the list of narratives is as long as it is varied.

With such a wide variety of factors contributing to suicidal tendencies, how can your community help?

As a general rule, programs and resources to prevent suicides should be updated often and regularly promoted to your citizens. Its also important to create programs tailored to the cultural needs of different racial and ethnic groups to maximize their impact.

And according to Nancy Lublin, Founder and CEO of text message-based crisis counseling firm Crisis Text Line, compassion is key when developing assistance for those in need.

You need to be really awesome at empathy and capable of mirroring and validating without actively problem-solving for them, without telling [someone] what to do.

Many communities have already begun developing actionable suicide prevention programs. For inspiration and guidance, look into the following programs and resources:

The World Health Organizations community engagement toolkit also helps officials create unique programs for their citizens, which can be reviewed in full below.

And if you, or someone you know, is in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (Lifeline) at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or text the Crisis Text Line (text HELLO to 741741). Both services are free and available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

9789241513791-eng by Ed Praetorian on Scribd

Why More Georgia Teens Are Attempting Suicide and How You Can Help

Read the original here:

What Your Community Can Do About the Growing Suicide Epidemic in the US - Efficient Gov

Is the nuclear family finished? Given the decline of marriage over the past five decades and the rise of cohabiting and single parenthood, as well as childlessness, it might seem so. The demise of the traditional family might even be welcomed by a few progressives. But we should not easily kiss goodbye to an institution that, according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is the natural and fundamental social unit. It is alsoone that has proved the safest and most nurturing for children.

Yet goodbye is the gist of an essay by American journalist David Brooks that appeared in The Atlantic recently. In "The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake", Brooks denies that the type of family the great majority of baby boomers and their parents (and grandparents) grew up in is even traditional.

Writing primarily about the American context, he says the family consisting of a married couple and their children living independently, first became the norm around 1920, and flourished only between 1950 and 1965, owing to a unique set of social circumstances.

During this period, a certain family ideal became engraved in our minds: a married couple with 2.5 kids. When we think of the American family, many of us still revert to this ideal. When we have debates about how to strengthen the family, we are thinking of the two-parent nuclear family, with one or two kids, probably living in some detached family home on some suburban street. We take it as the norm, even though this wasnt the way most humans lived during the tens of thousands of years before 1950, and it isnt the way most humans have lived during the 55 years since 1965.

The way most humans lived during all the previous thousands of years, says Brooks, was in some kind of extended family, and that is what we need to aim for again now. People are hungering for it. The nuclear family where it still exists has become too isolated and detached, and viable only for those who can afford to buy supplementary services like daycare and domestic help.

That leaves about 70 percent of society older people, unmarried adults, single parents, divorced individuals and others or much of it, without the close relationships and support that every human being needs, especially for successfully raising children. Around a quarter of children live apart from their father, and more than a third of Americans over 45 say they are chronically lonely.

Brooks argues that we need to break out of the mindset that the nuclear family is best, and thicken and broaden family relationships by incorporating extended families and families of choice formed with friends, co-religionists or other associates. These forged families would be a better way to raise children than in isolated nuclear family units.

One thing he is certain about: we cannot go back to the 1950s or salvage the nuclear family as a general norm. Everything has changed, above all the culture, which has become more individualistic and self-oriented. Women have been liberated from the kitchen, love has become a matter of self-expression, and marriage is no longer about childbearing and childrearing but about adult fulfilment.

This cultural shift was very good for some adults, but it was not so good for families generally, says Brooks. But does he regret it? One gets the impression, rather, that he welcomes the opportunity to do something new or something old with a new twist as he has in his own life.

The upper class: still living in the 1950s

Yet in his keenness to move on he fails to give due weight even to some of his own data.

For example, he notes that since 2012 (2014 according to another source) the share of children living with married parents has been inching up. He links this, like the trend of young adults living with their parents, to the 2008 recession. However, he also cites research by family sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox showing that the nuclear family headed by married parents remains a personal ideal even among men and women who have a liberal attitude to alternative family structures.

This cultural ideal is a concrete reality among college-educated Americans, as Brooks records: Among the highly educated, family patterns are almost as stable as they were in the 1950s The poor and working class cannot afford the nuclear family, he says; but research among Black women has shown that they too still aspire to marriage despite their extended family supports.

You can infer the most about what people truly desire when they have more options and fewer constraints, says Scott Stanley, another family scholar, and those with most options with higher education and incomes are choosing the nuclear family.

It is not only material poverty that is keeping others from following suit.

Harvard researchers cited by Wilcox and Hal Boyd in a response to Brooks found that black boys are more likely to achieve upward economic mobility if there are more black fathers in a neighbourhood and married couples as well. And for poor children of all races, the fraction of children with single parents in a given community is the strongest and most robust predictor of economic mobility or its absence. In other words, it takes a village but of married people to raise the odds that a child will have a shot at the American dream.

Children, after all, are the heart of the matter. If there were no next generation to raise why should we care how adults live? As it is, a huge body of social research confirms that the children are most likely to flourish when raised by their own biological parents. The alternatives are not, in fact, promising.

Wilcox and Boyd point out that most multi-generational living at present involves a single mother living with her own parent, and research shows that the average child raised in such a household is doing about the same as one raised by a single mother that is, not so well. And children raised by aunts or uncles tend to report feelings of loneliness and sadness.

As for living in a community with non-related people: Over the years study after study has detailed the many possible downsides to introducing unrelated adults, especially men, into childrens lives without the presence of those childrens married parents.

As Kay Hymowitz put it, Yes the nuclear family is the worst family form, except for all the rest.

Can atomising forces be reversed?

In addition to in its classic form depending on women full-time in the home, Brooks main problems with the nuclear family is that it is small (say four people) detached and isolated. The first objection about womens role has largely been addressed by todays married parents. The others are real deficits but they can be reversed. They were, after all, driven by active policies as well as economic trends and personal choice.

Remember the population bomb of the mid-1960s? The pill? Legalised abortion? That was largely about the powers that were wanting to delay family formation and make families small. Second wave feminism assured women this was the best thing for them. Hollywood and pop culture fostered the idea of marriage as the culmination of a quest for a romantic soulmate. What happened in between could be taken care of by the family planning clinic, and if families did not form at all, by the state.

Traditional supports became redundant for those swept up in this individualistic culture. Christian author Rod Dreher agrees with Brooks that the nuclear family is not viable today and blames the churches for caving in to the culture of individualism and sentiment. His book, The Benedict Option, urges Christians to try to form intentional communities somewhat segregated from mainstream society that will support a rigorous religious culture the only hope for the family.

Perhaps Dreher is right not so much about his community option but about the religious culture necessary to support the married family. Marriage is about a love that is committed and self-sacrificing, and to that extent counter-cultural today. That kind of family life is certainly harder to sustain without strong networks of friends, family and community. Above all, it seems to need the faith and hope that a religious community can nurture if it keeps its backbone.

It remains to be seen whether churches and other faith communities can rise to the challenge that David Brooks has issued in the form of an RIP for the nuclear family.

* The Institute for Family Studies has a symposium on David Brooks essay here.

Carolyn Moynihan is deputy editor of MercatorNet.

Here is the original post:

Is it time to kiss the nuclear family goodbye? - MercatorNet

Christianity is Not Just About the Afterlife!

SEATTLE, WA - For those who follow the teachings of Jesus, its not uncommon to ask, How do I incorporate His wisdom in my everyday life? Caesar Kalinowski, top-selling author and discipleship expert, wants to help answer that question. His solution? Everyday discipleship. But what does that mean, exactly?

Put simply, its a way of living that allows anyone to live practical, faith-filled lives in their respective communities so they can follow in the footsteps of Jesus in a way that inspires and transforms those around them.

This is the way that many Christians want to live. With church attendance declining nationwide, its more important than ever to set a daily example for others and lead the charge in creating everyday disciples. To many, however, taking these extra steps seems like a daunting task. Important things like family, work, and other commitments make it difficult to find the extra time to do almost anything. According to Caesar's teachings, a missional lifestyle of everyday discipleship doesnt demand huge, time-consuming changes that interfere with your personal and professional life. Instead, it's a series of smaller, incremental changes that can be incorporated into any daily routine!

Discipleship is not a set of activities we need to jam into our lives or a series of classes that we need to take. And a missional community is more than just a weekly meeting of our church small group with a name change, he says. Its a series of simple rhythms or moves we can easily, and intentionally, engage in our everyday life. Step by step.

Though these changes are simple, Caesar knows how tough it can be to undertake this alone, which is why he has made it his mission to teach and coach others through the process of intentional, missional living himself. His next Everyday Disciple Incubator, a group coaching and mentoring cohort, opens up this April.

Caesar is a spiritual entrepreneur and an avid storyteller. He loves to help those with a high commitment to intentional living in the areas of their family, faith, and discipleship acquire the leadership skills and tools necessary to succeed and leave a lasting legacy.

His past work includes communications, media production, and extensive travel in international missions. He is a master missional strategist and coach who has helped thousands of leaders and pastors start, grow, and multiply new churches. He is one of the founders of Soma Communities and served as the Director of the GCM Collective. He has also been featured in Christianity Today and as a keynote speaker at hundreds of national and international events and podcasts.

Caesar authored the best-selling The Gospel Primer and Transformed: A New Way of Being Christian. His latest book, Bigger Gospel, was recently published by Missio Publishing. He and his wife of 36 years, Tina, live near Seattle.

Those yearning to fit their faith into their everyday lives can learn more at Caesars website, where they can also find his seven simple steps to adopt a missional lifestyle. Additionally, they can find out more about being coached by Caesar, in which he works with groups of all types as a spiritual and personal coach for those interested in missional living and everyday discipleship.

Media ContactCompany Name: Graceland, IncContact Person: Caesar KalinowskiEmail: Send EmailPhone: (253) 222-8493City: SeattleState: WACountry: United StatesWebsite: https://caesarkalinowski.com

Visit link:

Learning to Live Like Jesus in Everyday Life with Caesar Kalinowski - Press Release - Digital Journal