Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Building Community - social behavior

[BM.Vornbrock (bmv]

It has been a long, long time since I had time to read a Cohousing summary.
My apologies for not re-introducing myself at this time.  I'm here but have
a very short amount of time.

I want to expand on something that was written in this thread...

THESHLIFE [at] aol.com wrote:

> Religion is more normal than not-religion in the US.  Check the stats.

In my exposure to and review of those 'stats' I've discovered something rather
startling.  What is normal is to claim a religious affiliation.  When the
questions are refined to something approaching "do you consider yourself
to actively be religious or spiritual?", the percentages shrink quickly to under
40%.  They seem to have been fairly constant for much of the history of the 
United States.  That seems to include the early time period where all colonial 
outposts tended to have a religious foundation.

No surprise: so much of what is considered normal, isn't.

So, I'd like to suggest that cohousing might be viewed as having a specific
calling:  people who wish to meet some of their needs for housing and community 
in a conciously created environment.  

Those who aren't interested won't come 'round.  No matter how `normal' it might
look.

Barry Vornbrock