Does Anyone Live in an Intentional Community?

Question

I've been widowed for almost 20 years and never had children. I've always admired the Amish and the Mennonites for the simplistic lifestyle they have. I love their cohesiveness, the simplicity, but hard work ethic they have. I love the way they educate their own children to continue with the values the elders have. Some communities will have no part of electricity or motorized vehicles. Growing up in southern Ontario I saw many horse and buggy go off for church on a Sunday morning. I'd like to be a part of that too. Is there anyone who can answer my query? What is it like to be part of even a newer type of intentional community where everyone puts in x number of hours and contributes to the welfare of the group? I don't mean a closed-knit, cloistered community, but perhaps one with a general store where the outer community is invited to shop, and people in the "community" go out to work in the town. I'd really like to make the choice of how I spend the last 1/3rd of my life. I want to spend it with the family I've never had and feeling part of a larger community. Thanks

Answer 1

The groups you mentioned are united around their religious beliefs, which determine the form of their communities.  You don't mention your own religious beliefs, which makes me think that perhaps you're not looking for that sort of intentional community (although if I'm wrong, you could check out http://www.thesimpleway.org/PSC/index.ht... http://www.hutterites.org/,  or http://www.missio-dei.com/member/ for a start).

If you're interested in a non-religious-based intentional community, you might like to take a look at the Northwest Intentional Communities Association (NICA) (http://www.ic.org/nica/), which among other things publishes a Communities Directory Communities, available free online at http://directory.ic.org/iclist/.  Wikipedia also has a clickable list of intentional communities in North America and elsewhere (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_int...

I would think that life in each would have the potential to vary significantly (look at the problems faced by the Bruderhof as an example of a negative extreme), so I think the best source of information would be each community itself, and many listed above have websites or other contact info, and most encourage visits.  To get as balanced a view as possible, I'd certainly ask questions about the difficult and negative aspects as well as the positive and heartwarming -- if they can't or won't come up with any at all, it would be a definite red flag since that's not really realistic for human life, communal or not.

Best wishes.