Community Intentions

One week. We weren’t sure we were going to make it this long at Myrtle Glen Farm. After some last minute scrambling to set up an Oregon farm, we confirmed our stay for 10 days believing we were headed toward an old family farm that was no longer doing business. I was looking forward to getting to know a wise old man as we helped out on his property that was now up for sale.

As we drove up to the house (a good 20+ minutes from the nearest small (read: miniscule) town), we were greeted by a small crowd eating dinner on the patio of the gorgeous custom built farmhouse. Hearing names, where people were from, and how long they’d been here, we learned that indeed this was no family farm but more of a make-shift (and relatively transient) intentional community.

I quickly adjusted my expectations and thought to myself how neat of an experience this might be; I’ve always been interested in living in such a community. But the more I began to settle in, the more uncomfortable I got.

At first, it was the shifty looks of which we were the object that bothered me most. It was clear, to be sure, that we were the most “mainstream,” what with our Honda Accord, actual luggage, and yes, clean clothes.

Each individual did warm up to us, and we got to know people better. It’s amazing how time and a willingness to be in uncomfortable situations can really make people learn to dwell with each other more harmoniously.

There was a mix of ultra self-consciousness on my part but also newfound space to fully embrace my quirks and failings more publicly. My self-consciousness was interestingly not about my body, which is often the case in the “real-world.” This time it was about what I believe or how my opinions might be different.

In one way I felt liberated from worries about being stinky, exposing cellulite, or temple grease in the hair. No instead I was worried that my anxiety about drinking raw milk would be discovered, or my opinion that the government can actually accomplish good things (everything was a conspiracy theory here). On the one hand, there was an affirming community that saw beauty and righteousness in each person. On the other hand, should one stray too far from shared values and beliefs, one would be considered misguided at best, evil at worst.

This made living here as a “mainstream-shower taking-leg shaving-I like my electronic coffee maker –and don’t hang out my aluminum foil to dry” individual challenging, to say the least. Yet, as I describe the community here, both the wholeness and brokenness of it, I realize it’s not that different from any other community that creates space for diversity in particular ways but also shuns others for particular ideas or practices. Every community makes choices about such categories and guidelines.

I think the more shocking thing perhaps, is that despite it's transience it was a community, something we sometimes fail to achieve in the so-called “mainstream” (I definitely lacked one while living in Boston). And yes, community is messy at best, but it is sometimes that messiness, the step you take deep into the shit and realize "damn this is hard," that you realize you are in fact truly, intentionally, communing with others.