Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Culture

[Rob Sandelin (robsan]

How could I resist jumping into this?

One of my very deepest beliefs as both a resident of cohousing and an 
organizer of cohousing and intentional community networking is that the 
very things which William Johnson noted: Sharing, cooperation, etc. are 
the biggest things we can share with the rest of our culture.

By creating and living these "values", we offer a lamp in the darkness. 
 Let our communities be the sparks which ignites our culture into 
flames of compassion, sharing, and working together.  Let our 
communities be the training grounds for waves of cooperative approaches 
within neighborhoods.  Let our cooperative neighborhoods be the 
foundations of cooperative towns, cities and culture.

This Sunday Sharingwood has invited 100 of our  immediate neighbors to 
visit, to share in our community commons, and to create a local block 
parent program to extend the values of cooperative child care far 
beyond the borders of our community.  Cohousing is the training ground 
which imparts the lessons of personal communication and cooperation.  I 
see it as my personal lifes work, to teach and share this with everyone 
I can reach.

I don't feel out of sync with my culture, my culture is out of sync 
with me. I am currently donating 25 hours a month to the communities 
movement and I don't even keep track of the money I have spent.  If I 
can spend the next 50 years of my life teaching and evangelizing the 
benefits of working cooperatively in neighborhoods perhaps my life will 
have had some meaning.

Rob Sandelin
Puget Sound Cohousing Network
Creating a better society, one neighborhood at a time