Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: religion in COHOUSING

[Steve Melamut (melamut]

Some of the members of Solterra have already discussed the advantages of 
offering diversity training to our members.  We have promoted the 
community as having a diverse population in terms of age and background.  
We also have periodically encountered the problems inherent in bringing 
people of different backgrounds together and have worked them out.  

It gets awfully hard to live somewhere (not to mention boring) if you 
have to continually edit what you say and do, to avoid offending anyone.  
The ceremony, as described in the list-serv, does not tempt me, but what 
the heck, I cannot see how it hurt anyone to participate in it or watch 
it.  You don't always need to exhibit your beliefs on your shirt.

Despite the later Supreme Court decisions banning school prayer, I cannot 
identify any harm done to me by the Christian school prayer of my 
childhood.  My father had told me not to participate, so I did not (I was 
brought up in an orthodox jewish household).  It may have indicated to me 
that my world was not as homogenous as I had imagined, but that was a 
valuable lesson.

I've gone off on a ramble...  Next time, just watch, or refuse to 
participate, but truthfully there is no ceremony that would not have 
offended someone.  People with strong enough beliefs in god (note the 
small g, i am not speaking for myself) would be offended by 
the absense of any spirituality.  

Just celebrate the diversity or build your communities homogenously
 and endure the result.  Cultural ghettos have 
some emotional highs from their sameness and familiarity, but create far 
too easy a target for residents of  other cultural ghettos who only 
see  alien beliefs and life styles.

Steve Melamut
Chapel Hill NC