In the Summer of 2012 Amber and I moved to Springfield, and right away we met with some friends at a breakfast cafe to talk about putting together an intentional community. We had a vision of what it could be like. As I reflect on that fateful breakfast several years later, I am happy to report that vision is a reality. In fact, the community that is now called Spare Key has far exceeded my hopes and expanded my vision.

We were looking for radical community. That is to say, a community that shared things. Our lives, our hopes, our day-to-day. We did not want to live in the same house with friends as we had successfully done in the past. We weren't looking for anything super immersive. We just wanted meaningful relationships with people that went beyond once-a-week interactions. And even that, in and of itself, is asking a lot. We didn't know if that kind of life would be in the cards for us at all.

As it turns out, we got much more than we asked. While the members of Spare Key do not live geographically close to one another, the community we have managed to generate actually feels more like a neighborhood than most actual neighborhoods do.

Spare Key has taught me many things over the past few years about the concept of community. Community is an abstract term, and can mean a lot of things. But while Spare Key is a community, I have come to think of it not so much as a place, or as a mission statement, or even as an expression of any philosophy or vision. I have conceptualized community primarily in those terms in the past. But now, to me, Spare Key is first and foremost a rich network of friendships.

And that's what we wanted all along.


~~~


(Jay's View from the Front Porch, January 2015)
sparekeycommunity@gmail.com