Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Cohousing Development and Red/Blue Schism

[Ann Zabaldo (zabaldo]

Karen -- 

Please don't unsubscribe.  This could be the beginning of a conversation
that's been long overdue on this list.

If Saorise is dipping her toe in then I'm jumping in and splashing around
and seeing what we can drench anew.

The great promise of cohousing is its ability to provide a
home...literally...for people to have an extended conversation or debate
over values, issues, concerns, desires...whatever.

If we are EVER to change the direction this country is going in, to alter
the course the divisions are taking us then we MUST change the conversation
we have about those whose ideas don't match ours.

There are not "bad" people or "good" people.  As Jim Wallis says so
eloquently in quoting Abraham Lincoln in his book "God's Politics" -- we
should not worry so much about whether God is on our side but "we should
pray and worry earnestly whether we are on God's side."  (Now, I'm NOT
saying that you have to believe in God at all.  But if you are going to play
the "God card" then at least get the relationship between you/us and God
correct.)

If cohousing becomes an island only for people who have a similar
orientation then it will have lost its great power.  And that's the power
for people to work out great differences because in community you are in
relationship.

I have a Saorise story too.  In the early stages of development here at
Takoma Village in Washington, DC, we had a woman member who would be
considered a very radical Catholic in Catholic circles.  She would have made
a great cohousing neighbor.  However she chose not to stay because she felt
she would never be accepted in the group because...she was pro-life.  And I
think that's too bad.

Here at Takoma Village we have a military household. We used to have two
others but both moved for various family reasons. We also have serious peace
activists.  I wish we had more of both.

I wish we would stop talking about Red and Blue states and talk about people
and issues instead.  And I wish we would put a face on the people we talk
about and not just talk about "them."

If cohousing is not a place where people w/ diverse feelings, thoughts,
politics, etc. can exist and THRIVE then I fear Red and Blue will dominate
our lives forever.  And that's such a shallow place to be.

So Karen I appeal to you and all others who may feel "marginalized" by the
seemingly liberal bent in cohousing:  please don't leave this list.  The
best that we are is yet to come.  We just haven't teased it out yet.

Best -

Ann Zabaldo
Takoma Village
Washington, DC


On 2/21/05 9:46 AM, "Karen" <silver+coho [at] phoenyx.net> wrote:

> On Mon, 21 Feb 2005, Chris ScottHanson wrote:
> 
> CS>Great insight!  Thanks.
> 
> You think so?  See, as a red-state resident, I find that oh-so-smug
> "us-them" attitude entirely off-putting, and since I'm now automatically
> the enemy, I'm going to go unsubscribe.
> 
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