Kononia/Diaconia

I was recently watching Visions of Utopia which is a video about intentional community through history and some modern examples. It got me thinking about a concept that I first heard about in my research on AmeriCorps and national service. A person I interviewed leading a faith-based AmeriCorps program in New York City that is a part of a broader "holistic ministry" talked about kononia and diaconia. I am not a Greek scholar, so I will take his word for it, but he said it referred to "building community, but in service to the broader community." I think this is a VERY powerful concept. I know from my own experience that a community that does not have a public purpose, a mission, beyond the well-being of its members is quite likely to falter and fall apart over time. The group slowly starts infighting over more and more petty issues until the members decide to go their separate ways. A public purpose holds a community together. It's another example of how serving others serves us too.

I thought this had some implications for cohousing as a model of intentional residential community. The generic form of cohousing has no higher purpose than the well-being of its members. (Individual cohousers may see themselves as promoting social and environmental innovation, but for most this is a secondary motivation.) I have not done empirical research, but I am a familiar with several cohousing groups that are certainly faltering. Momentum has been lost and there is a kind of entropy. Might this be a result of lacking a broader public purpose?

There is also a well known phenomenon in cohousing where a kind of depression sets in after the construction of cohousing is finished and all there is to do is move in. When the intense work is over is when the problems begin. This may be related as well. The development process may provide a focus that is lacking after moving it. Another related problem is that late comers to the community, or the children of the founders, fail to sustain the project or make a sufficient contribution.

I don't this is inevitable that cohousing groups will falter, but avoiding it would require being intentional. And I think the strategy is keep a public purpose alive. Does your cohousing group serve as a national model of effective group process? Do you offer tours that expose people to innovative green building techniques? Does the diversity in your group offer a chance to show how diverse people can thrive together? And so on. There is no right answer regarding purpose, but I am fairly convinced that the long term health of an intention community requires the group choose one that truly means something to them. The strongest, most lasting form of community building relies on promoting a shared public purpose.

I have a dream that the coming decades will see people of shared values gathering to form new intentional communities and neighborhoods across the country and the world. With the internet, it is easier and easier for people to find each other. For now many people are choosing to form groups with people that share similar interests. But my prediction is that over time people will realize that shared interests are not enough: shared values and a shared purpose are what they really looking for. (A blog for another day is why religious and spiritual communities have been slow to form intentional residential communities. Although there are certainly examples of them, they are as rare as cohousing. This surprises me because they seem like they would be early adopters.)

I hope that people go about the process of forming values/purpose based intentional communities in a way that does not lead to insolated, intolerant enclaves, but instead creates a network of vital and interconnected communities. (Part of the answer will lie in whether people operate from a place of fear or curiosity. See my other blog entry on fear.) I will do my best to promote the latter.