Instead of the front porch, today I am writing from the hammock. Nutmeg is lazing on the grass. Amber has decorated the harvest table with flowers and place-mats and the benches with blankets. I am getting ready to fire up the firebowl and grill burgers for Spare Key's weekly potluck.

Behind me on the porch an audacious plant grows from a crack in the caulking. We noticed it weeks ago, and we left it there. It has grown 18 inches, a slender green stalk straight toward the sky. I have no idea how it got there, or what it is, or how its roots are finding what they need in the bowels of my front porch. But I like what it's doing.

Just as a seed had thrived in calking and concrete, an intentional community has taken root in our own front yards.

After much soul-searching and debating of options, Amber and I have decided to stay in Springfield for the long term--to "hunker down" as one of my friends recently put it. We made this decision not least because of the unprecedented spirit of community we enjoy here. Having finally made a decision to settle, I can't tell you how liberating it is to just. be. present.

We are excited to participate in and contribute to what is happening in Springfield, a place that I know to be full of cultural creatives, high functioning idealists, and crusaders of every stripe. A metaphorical cloud of paper lanterns exists above Springfield, and I look forward to adding my own tiny lantern to the others that already illuminate the landscape.

The next stage is to find a particular region, a particular neighborhood, a particular community, a particular house or houses. We will find this when we find it. But wherever it may be and whenever we may find it, I hope I let nothing distract me in the meantime from just. being. present.


My View From the Front Porch: May 2015, Jan 2015, Aug 2014
jayhoward@gmail.com

Thanks to the wonder of email archives, the list below accounts for nearly every Spare Key potluck between May 2014 and May 2015.

We have a potluck dinner together once a week. We take turns hosting, and there are five houses in the rotation so far. After dinner, we decide where to meet next week and what the main course will be. The host house provides the main course, and we use email throughout the week to sort out who else is bringing what: sides, salads, desserts, drinks, and such.

Our list of entrees in reverse chronological order is as follows:

• Salmon Patties 
• Chicken Curry and Cauliflower
• Tilapia and Couscous and Early Grey Pudding
• Smoothies and Sandwiches (Progressive Dinner with Bicycles)
• French Toast Brunch for Dinner
• Tacos
• Finger food and Appetizers
• Crepes (Savory and Sweet)
• Pizza Tour of Springfield
• Burgers (with Bacon Jam)
• Spaghetti with Meat Ball
• Lasagna (Eat to Live)
• Broccoli soup and Veggie lentil soup
• Build Your Own Burritos
• Thanksgiving Dinner
• Kabobs
• Crock pot Chicken
• Homemade Pizza
• Spaghetti
• Chili
• Stir Fri 
• BLTs
• Breakfast Pumpkin Palooza
• Eating Together at a Tea Bar and Bites
• Paninis
• Pitas
• Build Your Own Quesadilla
• Pancakes
• Picnic at the Park
• Eating Together at Bambinos 
• BBQ
• Chickpea Curry with Radishes
• Polenta Pesto Shrimp Bruschetta
• Pork Steak
• Tomato Soup and Grilled Cheese
• Crock pot Pulled Pork

This list does not account for holidays or for Spare Key retreats. A handful of these meals recur two or three times.

The list also does not account for service project weeks. In the event of a service project, we have dinner on our own and just meet at the project location.

Having a rotating potluck ensures that no one person gets burnt out on hosting or cooking. It also provides an outlet for each member's individual cooking talents and tastes.

As necessary we provide two versions of the same dish (like lentil chili and venison chili) in order to accommodate dietary choices.

Lots of our food comes from Urban Roots, our beloved local urban farm. Spare Key is proud to have a CSA share through Urban Roots as well as a bread share and an egg share.


Below are some random photographs we have taken of the food we have prepared and shared together.

 

I had a wonderful time at the Saint Louis area Community of Communities gathering on Saturday, March 21. Lotus House hosted the event. In addition to Lotus, other communities were represented including Deaconess Ann House, the Vincentian Volunteer Corp, the New Beguines, and Anam Cara, among others. About 25 people attended overall.


The gathering encouraged me in many ways.

The Community of Communities gathering was very refreshing. From the hospitality and smiles, to the large pot of delicious veggie soup, to the chickens living under the back porch, I knew I was among members of my own tribe, so to speak. 

Springfield does not yet have the critical mass of covenanted intentional communities that Saint Louis has. I found it refreshing to suddenly be among so many kindred spirits when there are comparatively so few of us in Springfield. 

Also, the Lotus House has been around for longer than Spare Key. It is always inspiring to meet new friends who are farther along on the journey than us. I think there is a lot that Spare Key can learn from Lotus House. 






 

Spare Key was the only community from outside Saint Louis that was represented. It was a Saint Louis gathering, after all. But I was so glad they invited us. I had met Alden (who lives at Lotus House and who extended the invitation) only through email and through Lotus House's blog. Now that we've met, I sincerely hope Spare Key and Lotus House will find ways to work together in the future.



Many aspects of the gathering reminded me of my year in immersive community back in 2010.  For example, everybody at the gathering knew what the word “charism” meant. During introductions, everybody was able to easily name the two or three values upon which their respective communities were founded and by which they and their fellow community members endeavored to live.

I also noticed that many of us were in some kind of AmeriCorps program. Amber and I did AmeriCorps back in 2010, so I related to those folks who are currently in the throes of their own AmeriCorps stint. 

If their Intentional Community/AmeriCorps experience is anything like mine, their year will be deeply transformative for them in ways they won’t fully realize until later. In any event, while I knew that community and community service go together like PB and J, I had never recognized the specific symbiotic relationship that exists between AmeriCorps service corps and the broad range of religious Intentional Communities. 

I hope I get to see and interact with all the people I met at the Community of Communities gathering again in the future, whether in their neck of the woods or in mine.

• Take a community vacation
• Ideas?
• Write more blogs 
• Start a phone plan
• Buy a pig (a dead one that had a great life eating grass, rolling in mud, and feeling sunshine)
• Garage sale (to raise money for vacation?)
• Volunteer regularly 
• Stick to First Tuesday Activity Day. In lieu of regular book meet, we volunteer or do a fun thing together. 
• Visit each other's churches 
• Long bike ride 
• Katy
• Frisco
• Dirt Roads
• Teach a dance class 
• Take a dance class
• Contra 
• Garden together 
• Grow Shed for starting seedlings
• Plan crops to minimize overlap
• Make skin care products 
• Make house cleaners 
• Buy a giant bike 
• Business cards 
• Monthly movie club
• Cob house workshop

Long Term Goals

• Have a new home town (Springfield or somewhere else)
• Make a community product
• Beer
• Soap
• Fermented foods (kombucha, sour kraut, kimchi)
• Clothes
• Swords
• Find a stable living situation to better support each other 
• Buy land
• camping retreat
• build houses 
• DIY stuff 
• Tiny house stuff 

• To Set  A Fitness Goal: We will keep loose time on each trip and see if we get faster.

• To Study Phenology: Fancy word for the observation of changes with the seasons. Read ‘A Sand County Almanac’ by Aldo Leopold for a great example. I have gotten to see my yard and the trail at my work change throughout the year, but never such a dramatic natural location as the hollow.

• To Actually Use all of our Outdoor Gear: I have spent too much time and money on foul-weather gear that never gets used. As we have set our hike dates for the year already, we will inevitably encounter some funkiness and get to put our stuff to the test.

• To Spend Quality Time Together: Ryan recently moved from 7 feet away to 70 miles away and we need to do things together that don’t involve instruments every once in a while.

• They take weight off them tired joints: You can take as much as 25% of the force that would be on your knees and ankles and put them on your arms and shoulders.

• You haul butt: We were nearly running down these steep descents with no fear. On flat sections, you really can feel yourself being propelled by your arm strength.

• You literally cannot fall...ever: We crossed ice sheets, wet creek stepping stones, and slimy thawing mud flats. Never lost a step.

• You can poke stuff: Always useful.

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