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Letters

Keep Up the Good Work

Dear Communities:
In our community we read your magazine cover to cover. The issues you have written about are the same issues we have deliberated over, worried over, fumed over, laughed over, and cried over. It's so nice to see what's important to communitarians reflected back to us in your pages. Keep up the good work.
Trishuwa
Gaian Contemplative Community
Tum Tum, Washington

Dear Communities:
You folks publish one of the best magazines out there. It provides an outlet for people who see the world in a different light, and is tastefully done. Thank you!
John Paul Caragata
Ft. St. John, British Columbia

Dear Communities:
A few weeks ago a mysterious parcel arrived at the international community of Auroville. It was full of back issues of Communities   magazines, since l993! How this parcel came to be sent to us we do not know, but are very grateful. It has been a feast to read so many intelligent, insightful, helpful reflections - a whole body of collective knowledge, articulated and clear - by others involved in intentional community. We think that the information and especially the sense  of community that comes through very strongly in the magazine will be a valuable resource here, where our "diversity quotient" is extremely high and our ideas of community quite varied. (Our members are Europeans and Americans, subdivided into Latinos and Anglos, and Asians, including Indians, subdivided into city Indians and villagers.) It's not our ideas but our aspiration for a higher consciousness which holds Auroville together, and so it is very helpful to find that certain key ideas   do seem to prevail in community living, wherever it is practiced. For this insight I am grateful to your magazine, and its inclusivity. To my surprise, I found articles about historic communities and the Christian communities issue to be extremely helpful in creating this sense of a common knowledge base. Thank you, whoever sent this precious parcel!
Bhavana
Auroville Community
Tamil Nadu, India

We're delighted that you've enjoyed the back issues!

Learning From Historic Communities

Dear Communities:
Your magazine is excellent! I have long had an interest in the utopian/spiritual/intentional communities of the 19th century. Your magazine provides a fascinating current perspective on living in and creating communities. One suggestion: a column on the history of early US communities, which could provide a rich resource that the current communities movement could draw from. Also, do you know of any publications that offer ongoing research about these early communities? Thank you very much.
Camellia El-Anably

We agree! Please see p. 58 for our new Historic Communities column, "The Amana Colonies: Mysticism and Common Sense." Writer/researcher Steve Bjerklie began with "Becoming Someplace: Kaweah's Big Dream" in our Spring '97 issue and "Fountain Grove: 'And every priest a Cupid be'" in our Summer '97 issue. The   Journal of the Communal Studies Association often carries articles on historic communities. You can join the Communal Studies Association and receive their journal (and attend their annual convention, "Communal Frontiers," October 9-12 in Tacoma, Washington), by contacting CSA, PO Box 122, Amana, IA 52203; 319-622-6446; csa@netins.net.

How to Transition to Community Life?

Dear Communities:
Although I live in the suburbs of Minneapolis and work in mainstream corporate America, I read every one of your issues from cover to cover. I consider your messages of cooperation, sustainability, and utilization of local resources vital to the changes our culture and the planet are undergoing. I was sorry to read Business Manager Laird Sandhill's assessment of the present financial status of the magazine. Under separate cover I am sending in a check for a gift subscription. I'd like to do more, but am not sure what that might be. I do have a suggestion, though, for a theme for a future issue of Communities. I'd be interested in reading more about making the transition from mainstream to community life. I think there are a lot of people like me that you could reach. We have jobs; we have children; we have mortgages, credit card debt, 401Ks, dishwashers - and a deep sense of isolation. I support the values inherent in sustainable community projects; I just don't quite see how to get there from here. I don't know how to step off the money-go-round onto terra firma  without losing my balance. And this is not just a financial dilemma. There are emotional, spiritual, and cultural aspects as well. That's why I believe the subject of transition could be a worthwhile focus for an article, or an issue of Communities. Wishing you abundant success!
Trisha McKenney
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Thank you for your thoughtful letter, and your gift subscription, which will definitely help. Your suggestion is excellent, and we believe we could address this topic in every issue, perhaps in a regular column, with readers describing how they made their transitions to community living. Two possibilities you may want to consider are cohousing communities or housing cooperatives in the Minneapolis area, which could be a good transitional communities for people with mortgages and corporate jobs. Also, please see our description of "The Art of Community," our regional networking gathering in November, described below.
Would any of our readers like to send us a "how-I-transitioned-to-community" story? We'd love to hear from you.

Communities Networking Gathering

Dear Communities:
Just read "Directory Dilemma" in the Summer '97 issue. You mentioned that one idea to increase the FIC's resources might be to host conferences to introduce people to community. As someone who lives in mainstream society, I'd be interested in this, and I suspect there are a lot of folks like me. Even with a tool like the Communities Directory, it's a pretty daunting task for most people to learn about various community lifestyles and investigate many different communities. Anything the FIC could do to somehow package this into an educational experience would be a help. A few years ago I attended a fair in San Francisco, mainly because one of the speakers presented a slide show of 20 or so communities around North America that he'd visited. His presentation gave me a thumbnail sketch of "what's out there." His slide show was the sort of event, in expanded format, that would fill a need. It's this sort of process - doing "outreach" so to speak - that would eventually result in a larger number of people knowing more about the Fellowship for Intentional Community and creating more support for your work.
Kirk Evans
Los Angeles, California

Good idea! We're hosting "The Art of Community," a weekend of workshops and networking at Sunrise Ranch community in Loveland, Colorado, November 21-23. Workshops will include decision making, finding your community, children in community, legal options, fundraising, diversity in community, a Community Bazaar, a dance, and ... Geoph Kozeny's famous communities slide show. For registration and information contact Sunrise Events at 970-679-4306.

Did the "Cults" Issue Attack the Catholic Church?

Dear Communities:
I recently read the Fall 1995 issue of Communities, "Intentional Communities and `Cults.'" I was disturbed by Tim Miller's article, "Identifying Cults" (p. 45), and his portrayal of the Catholic Church. Although he would appear to have some knowledge of Catholicism his statements reveal numerous half-truths and misrepresentations. His article repeatedly targets the Catholic Church as embracing cult-like characteristics, giving an overall tone of prejudice and attack. It's ironic that we find this article in the magazine, when your "Cults" issue makes the point that much abuse of intentional communities is brought on by people outside the group, as Laird Sandhill describes in the Publisher's Note (p. 5). In this case, Tim Miller is the outsider abusing the Catholic Church.
Scott Whittemore
Winfield, British Columbia

On the contrary, Tim Miller's point was that the so-called "characteristics of cults" promoted by anti-cult activists are meaningless, because those characteristics apply to many mainstream religions - which are obviously not "cults" - such as Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches and many Protestant denominations. No one would call Catholic convents and monasteries "cults." He used convents and monasteries as examples because they're so widely known. The point of Tim's article - and the whole issue - was that calling a group a "cult" usually means one doesn't agree with or understand their beliefs. And that despite the relatively rare incidents publicized by the media, most groups called "cults" are not harmful or dangerous to their members at all - they are just strange, from an outsider's point of view. His point was that calling these groups "cults" simply slurs and slanders them without actually helping anyone.