Spare Key recently decided on new people for leadership roles, which we call czar positions. Last year, I was the Sharing Czar and I was asked to continue in this role. My main job is to find opportunities for us to share life in creative ways. This past year that has taken the form of hosting a wedding shower for Rob and Abbey, a total of five group gifts, and a four-day vacation together, among other things.

All of this sharing meant a lot of money changed hands. According to our current budget, we have shared over $1,700 in expenses in just 2016. We did this in a variety of ways, but we found two that are my favorite! Introducing Splitwise and Splitzee.

In June, six of us took a vacation to Colorado to "crash" Rob and Abbey's honeymoon and meet up with our friends Josh and Alyssa who live there. (Disclaimer - we didn't crash anything, we just happened to go at the same time so we got to hang out with them in the mountains one weekend.) This involved a rental car, a pretty sweet Air BnB in the mountains, and sharing gas expenses. Now we could have just written checks to the person who paid for everything, but with a total of 10 people sharing the cabin for different lengths of time, that sounded like a logistical nightmare. That's where Splitwise saved us! We created a group on Splitwise that allowed us to split up the expenses in a fair way to reflect when each person stayed at the cabin. Then when we rented the car, we were able to just post that expense on Splitwise. This saved us so much time and hassle because Splitwise divided up the expenses for us.

As I mentioned before, Spare Key has gotten into giving group gifts. Why don't more people do this? We were able to be so much more generous than ever before through group gifting. Our group gifts included some awesome camping gear for Rob and Abbey's wedding shower, a beautiful leather bag filled with office goodies for Tessa's graduation, a comfy rocker for the Cowen's when sweet Autumn was born, and a group care package for Abbey when lots of her things were stolen with her car. At first, we just had one person pay for the gift then everyone gave the same amount to that person. We quickly realized with all the gifts we were giving this wasn't sustainable. It also wasn't fair because one person might want to give a different amount than someone else. That is where Splitzee came into play. This wonderful tool allows you to create a "fund" for whatever you want and whoever wants to participate can give however much they like to the fund. That's how we ended up doing the group gifts and it worked like a dream. You can connect it to your Paypal account and just give the amount you are comfortable with super easily. For most of our gifts, we put a deadline on it and then used whatever funds we collected to determine what gift(s) to purchase.

All of this to say - sharing money doesn't have to be difficult. With tools like these two (and I'm sure there are many more), sharing is easy. Group gifting is quickly becoming one of my favorite things.

Spare Key just finished reading Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove's The Wisdom of Stability which makes a case for staying in place and investing in a neighborhood. This is the second of two posts inspired by that book.

In our mobile culture, we are constantly under pressure to move from city to city in order to advance our careers, to further our educations, or simply to trade up for nicer houses in nicer neighborhoods. We are taught that fulfillment is always just over the next hill.

"...We can see the paradox: the same restlessness that sends us searching for community also keeps us from settling down wherever we are."—Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, Wisdom of Stability, p 20

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove does a great job of pointing out how despite our desire for true community, all of our social habits push us to seek what we're looking for somewhere else. There always seems to be bigger and better opportunities elsewhere.

Typically, there actually are better opportunities elsewhere. For this reason, we get very antsy when it comes to committing to anybody or anything.

But stable community cannot exist without commitment.

So if (and this is a big if!) community really is what we're looking for, stability of place is a necessity. There is no way around it. As Jonathan writes, "Stability demands that we do the long, hard work of life with other people in the place where we are."

I say "that's a big if" because I've moved at least once every year for the past ten years. Given the choice, I would do it all again. I moved from place to place in order to advance my education, learn about community and challenge myself. Sometimes we must go through a season of mobility to reach our goals at that time.

However, if a person chooses to move to a new city often, it is safe to say that person's immediate goal is not community. And that's okay. There are plenty of legitimate goals in life other than community. In fact, most people do not choose community and never do.

That's why intentional communities are radical. We like to call ourselves "ordinary radicals" (especially those of us in the New Monastic vein) because we make counter-cultural life choices.

Because we value friendship and conviviality, we decide to live together or near each other even though that decision might limit our other choices. Since we value collaboration, we choose to share things when we could just as easily go out and buy those things on our own. And because we value stability (and because our community members value us), we choose to stay in the place where we are.

This post was written by Jay Howard, Neighborhood Czar of Spare Key. If you missed the first of this series on The Wisdom of Stability, click here. 

Photo credit: The Wisdom of Stability

Spare Key just finished reading Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove's The Wisdom of Stability which makes a case for staying in place and investing in a neighborhood. This is the first of two posts inspired by that book.

Spare Key's decision to read the Wisdom of Stability corresponded nicely with my and Amber's recent decision to buy a house. We have chosen to put down roots, and so it was nice to read something that affirmed that decision.

But in making his case for stable intentional communities, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove drew heavily from the Desert Fathers and Mothers. For example, he quotes Saint Antony a lot:

"In whatever place you live, do not easily leave it."
—Abba Anthony, 3rd century AD

As a recent home buyer, I resonate with the Desert Fathers' commitment to place. But in other ways, I have to admit I have a hard time getting excited about the wisdom of the Desert Fathers.

In many spiritualities---take Buddhism for example---the way of the householder is not considered a very spiritual path. In fact, the term householder meant "non-monastic" and contrasted sharply with the more spiritual and ascetic monastics who rejected the cares of society and sought freedom from all worldly attachments.


Christian monasticism makes exactly the same distinction between monastics and laity/householders. Monastics in general and the Desert Fathers and Mothers in particular always emphasized withdrawing as much as humanly possible from the distractions of everyday life. No getting married, no having a secular career, and certainly no buying houses.

Modern intentional communities aren't like that at all, of course. Instead, we put a great deal of emphasis on being active in our neighborhoods. Many intentional communities, including Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove's own Rutba House in Durham NC, make a point of being hospitality houses.

So, while the Desert Fathers have much to teach us about the power of committing to a place, they're not quite as natural a choice when it comes to teaching us how to serve that place.

This post was written by Jay Howard, Neighborhood Czar of Spare Key. Check back later for the second part of this post series on The Wisdom of Stability. 

Our mission statement says: 

Spare Key is a neighborhood of adventurers committed to fostering practical expressions of the spiritual, personal and communal goals of its members through the act of sharing in hopes of leaving the world better than we found it. 
 

Today I want to focus on the "sharing" part. Through sharing, we help each other toward our goals, and we believe we can change our corner of the world for the better.

I've tried to compile a list of things we have shared so far as a community. The list is remarkable long considering how short a time we have been at it. (Spare Keyers, help me out in the comments section and add the items I'm forgetting.) There are stories behind every item on this list, which perhaps we can elucidate in future posts. 

Some of the items on this list are held independently, and some we purchased together as a community. I have mostly listed material items, and I didn't even try to cover the more important stuff that we share as a community - things like emotional support, happiness, and camaraderie. 

 













lawn mowers
sewing machine
wii U
a side of beef
laundry facilities
2 CSA shares
pet watching
nerf guns
garden work
yard work
camping stuff
freezer space
storage space
books
skill-sharing workshops (pilates, sewing, etc)
bike tools
other tools (tool library; drills, power washers)
brewing equipment
food
talent, time, and energy spent cooking.
musical ability (vocal, instrumental)
space (porches, yards, houses)
retreat expenses
holiday gift exchanges
cell phone plans