Life in common

I shared some thoughts a while ago about the idea of community living and what that might look like for us today. Recently I had the opportunity to visit Hockerton Housing Project. I've been intrigued by the concept of living in community for a while, so when a last-minute space became available on a colleague's field trip, I took it. 

We spent an afternoon at this intentional eco-community of five households near Southwell, Nottinghamshire, whose aim it is to live sustainably. In many ways, Hockerton is what you might expect of an eco-community. The rooves have photovoltaic panels and there are two wind turbines on-site. The land is farmed for animals and fruit and veg. Rainwater is collected via the roof guttering and cleaned for drinking by three filters (UV, carbon and string), while water for washing is filtered through sand. Amazingly, the homes are naturally heated using a clever combination of the sun, triple-glazing, well-sealed doors and the fact that most of the house is covered by a hill (think Teletubbyland and you won't be far off). 

The view from the roof at Hockerton Housing Project

What's more, everything has a use – pigs turn the land over ready to be farmed, and non-decomposable car tyres are used all over the place for all sorts of novel purposes. There were also two different types of composting toilet – we may have only been there for a few hours, but naturally I tried them both. 

All of this was pretty interesting, being very different to the city life I am used to, but I wasn't convinced this way of living would be a practical possibility for the whole country to imitate. It was a huge financial investment to set up in the first place, with many legal and practical challenges. On top of that, I felt a sense of judgment towards those of us who live in less well-insulated houses with power showers and rooves made of slate rather than solar panels and old tyres. Having said that, it did get me thinking about ways in which we can minimally apply some of their principles even in the city, by considering our waste and shopping locally to reduce our food miles.

However, the thing I was most keen to ask the community members about was how it functioned from a relational aspect. Each family unit owns their own home, and the adults have outside jobs, but each household commits upon joining to give a minimum number of hours to the community and the business (be that farming, cleaning, or consultancy). Each brings their own skills to the community and the tasks are shared. 

There is a communal "vetting" system when one of the five houses becomes vacant, whereby members of the existing community assess a list of interested buyers. This seems fair enough, if you have to live together in such close proximity and work towards the same goals. Our tour guide did indicate that extroverts were preferable candidates for this kind of setup, but I think I know a good number of self-labelled introverts for whom community living among a small group of trusted like-minded fellows would be just the thing.

The Hockerton community has private family celebrations and shared community ones – for festivals like Christmas, Easter, Hanukkah, Bonfire Night and Halloween. I see this side of things already existing in our more geographically dispersed communities. We have our own gatherings for members of the family or household, and wider events of varying sizes for any excuse we can think of, be it birthdays, Christmas, or Broccoli Appreciation Day (23rd March). 

So, I'm still thinking about community. I wouldn't want to live in a place like this – I still prefer life in the city over the isolation of the country, and I'm not much good at gardening (and if I'm honest, the composting toilets did scare me a little). But it's given me some things to think about. To live in a more economically and environmentally sustainable way is more easily done in a team. And to truly share in life together, we have to be prepared to open our doors. 

Can't control the weather

Not long ago I had a mini epiphany (a little early, I know). I was out doing those final Christmas errands that unfortunately could not be accomplished from the safety and comfort of my own sofa. I was battling the winds and the rain, hauling parcels and awkwardly-shaped presents…

You know the feeling – too much to carry to hold up an umbrella, too windy for the umbrella to stay up anyway, face going numb from the cold, shops annoyingly spaced out so you have to do lots of walking in between them. All you want is to be back home, free from the bags, drying off, blanket up to your ears. 

I felt angry. Angry at the post office, at the supermarket, at the weather, angry at pretty much everything. I tried to pray about it – and let God know how frustrated I felt. And I realised there has only been one man who could control the weather. I’m not supposed to be able to.

We humans like to think we are in control of most things. For the most part, we can decide what things will happen, and when. We can shop online, watch TV on demand, fill our diaries with friends and plans. We prefer to be in the driving seat, and when things are outside of our control, we don’t like it much. When decisions are taken out of our hands, we cannot seem to stop worrying about them until they are resolved. Even trains delayed by ten minutes can cause us great angst.

There are some things we will never be able to control. We can’t control the weather. Which is why when Jesus calms a raging storm at sea by simply saying “be still”, we don’t need to be a first-century fisherman to understand the implications of this. He alone can actually control the weather. And he alone can control everything. Even the things we think we are in charge of, he has the final say over, because he made it all. 

This knowledge may not make the unpleasant things instantly easier, but it reminds us there is one who works in all things, whether or not we can comprehend it. And it reminds me that I should take my responses to these things to the one whose control is no illusion.

I built a house, and in it I put no goats, a piano and a hot tub

I’ve been doing some thinking about community. What does it look like to live in community with others? How can we demonstrate the all-in, sharing, giving, rejoicing community of the early church in Acts 2? 

Jesus instructed his followers to love each other with these words in John 3: “As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” How can we live out this weighty command and show the world our Lord through the way we share our lives together?

How can individuals practise living as housemates and meaningfully care for one another without simply being strangers under one roof? Is it possible for families, couples and single people to live in community together? Can we have a real and relevant community that cares for its members and welcomes in outsiders?

I recently asked a few friends if they would ever consider living in some kind of modern commune. (Not the kind where you have to grow your own vegetables though, because I planted half a packet of sunflower seeds this year and succeeded in growing a grand total of one flower.) The first friend I consulted wanted to know if there would be goats. The second’s only condition was that there be a hot tub. And the third was very keen to have a piano. 

Is Christian community more a concept or way of living than a visible thing? Along the spectrum from buying a castle for everyone to live in, to always having an open front door and spare food in the freezer, what should it – or could it – look like today?

I would be really interested to hear your thoughts on some of these questions, to help us think more about the way we do community!

My solitary sunflower, or, how can we live and grow together?

Being grown up

It’s that birthday time of year in my family. A marker of another year that has passed, a year in which we’ve obviously all grown older and wiser, or something.

As a kid you look up at “the grown-ups” (anyone over the age of about 15, probably) and marvel at the grown-up-ness of their lives, imagining what your own version of it will look like when you finally get there. I think my version of grown-up me looked something like my Barbie, with lots of money and photogenic babies.

But growing up doesn’t happen overnight, and I’m beginning to suspect that maybe it doesn’t really happen at all. (Check out this cool little piece about grown-up dreams written by a good friend of mine a few months ago.)

When I was little, it seemed that grown-ups were the ones who could drive nice cars and who had to go to work, who enjoyed sitting around for hours just talking and telling younger people what to do. So I suppose I have reached this level of “maturity”!

I’m no longer always the youngest person in the room – with friends both older and younger, and the recent addition of a brand new little family member, there is a growing sense that I should probably know what is going on. (I don’t feel like I do, most of the time.)

In the world’s eyes we are adults now – but we still have child-like fears and dreams. Responsibility can be a burden, and sometimes we just want to forget everything and sing and play in the sunshine. Maybe the people we always thought were grown up have been pretending all this time too.

----

If you haven’t heard it, have a listen to the song When I Grow Up from Matilda the Musical:

A simple reminder

“God is our refuge and strength, 
    an ever-present help in trouble. 
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way 
    and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, 
though its waters roar and foam 
    and the mountains quake with their surging.”
---Psalm 46:1-3

It’s been a tough twelve months in some ways. There have been visible joys too, and lots of them – new friendships, good times with the family, visiting new places, celebrations, hope for the future. But difficult undercurrents – sad farewells, disappointments, the suffering of loved ones, returning patterns of anxiety, struggles with prayer and devotions – have run right through it.

And this morning, remembering this one to be a friend’s favourite, I picked up a Bible and opened it to this psalm. Resisting the urge the sing the Dambusters theme tune, while struggling to focus on much at all first thing in the morning, I read these first few verses over and over. 

This is a picture of a mighty refuge, an impenetrable fortress, strong in the face of absolute chaos. The highs and lows and comings and goings of our days, weeks, and years – however wonderful or distressing they may seem to us at the time – cannot shake the almighty strength of the Lord. 

Whatever joys or disappointments we face, God is constant. It’s not a deep, ground-breaking reflection, just a simple reminder of the truth. Sometimes that’s all we can take in, but it’s more than enough to carry us.

Spillage

Recently I’ve been made more aware of some of the ugly ways my natural pride and selfishness show themselves when I’m under pressure. I become irrational and uncooperative about making decisions when I’m tired. I snap aggressively at strangers (and not-so-strangers) when I perceive them to be criticising me. Someone pushes too many buttons and my patience cracks.

In each of these situations, it’s so easy to lay the blame with someone else. Why are they nagging me at the end of a long day? Stop invading my personal space! 

A friend shared the following illustration this week that had been passed on to him. Say there’s a glass full of water on the table. If you knock the glass, the water spills out. He compared this to the rebelliousness that lurks in the heart of each and every one of us (and which the Bible warns us of, e.g. in Mark 7, Romans 3).

But whether or not you knock the glass, the water is in there. I guess it’s the knocks that bring the water slopping out of the glass and making a mess on the table, or in your life (and the lives of those around you).

So what’s the solution? Putting the glass right in the middle of the table, far from other dishes and elbows? Of course not. We can’t avoid all “knocks” – whether these are in the form of stress, tiredness, difficult personalities, ill health, uncertainty, grief, or something else. It’s not practical, for a start. 

But it also doesn’t deal with the problem of the evil that dwells within us whether people see it or not. We know that our inner ugliness exists and that it needs fixing, but it’s often easier to ignore it, and blame others for the mess.

1 John 1:8-9 says this: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

What a great promise in the face of our many and obvious failings. We need to keep on reminding each other of this amazing truth and encouraging one another to live it out!

The worst that could happen?

When I started to write this, I was about to go on holiday, and I was afraid. When we voice our fears, people often say, “what’s the worst that could happen?” And I suppose if my holiday fear was a fear of flying, or of becoming ill, then arguably the worst thing that could happen would, ultimately, be dying. And trusting in Jesus, death itself is not so bad after all, because something so much better follows.

But my fear is not of anything so tangible. My fear is of feeling anxious and afraid. Encouraging Harry in his anticipation of a Boggart Dementor in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Professor Lupin says, “that suggests that what you fear most of all is – fear. Very wise.” But fear can soon become a vicious circle, what David Powlison of the Christian counselling ministry CCEF described in a talk on anxiety and panic as “the fear of the fear of the fear”. 

Dr Pepper: what's the worst that could happen?

When feeling suffocated with anxiety and panic, and somebody says “what’s the worst that can happen?” – the answer is “this”. This is the worst that can happen, because the fear very quickly becomes out of control, until you feel sick and dizzy and you can’t think about anything else. The anticipation of the worst happening actually brings it about.

But it drives me to bring it to God in prayer. Tonight a friend read this verse:
“those who hope in the LORD
    will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles” (Isaiah 40:31).
And it reminded me that, weak as we are, it is God who empowers us to continue. So this is my challenge: to learn to soar, relying on the strength only God can supply.