We and some other friends often talk dreamily about building the compound. Is it escapism? Sure. But people say that about monasteries too and the world would be far poorer if they ceased to exist. We think about this not only for the reasons you suggest, but also thinking about retirement. A multigenerational compound with good values BUT that also doesn't go barmy (always the risk)? Sounds wonderful.
I’m convinced it can be done. After all, it’s how it used to be. It was just life. The difference now is that the definition of baseline reality is up for grabs. It’s not about getting away from sin (good luck with that!), it’s about simply operating within reality.
I have been thinking about this topic so much over the past few years. It's a little easier for me to stay where I am since I don't have kids to worry about. Sometimes I wonder if it's possible to live alongside a collapsing society and be able to survive without being part of a Benedict Option-type community. It really feels like going completely underground or "Shut up and bake the cake" are going to be the only two feasible options in the nearer-than-not future. Where it's hard for me is the fence-sitting of wanting to stay close enough to HT and ignore society until the last possible minute to get out, hoping (assuming) I'll see the last minute coming from afar rather than realizing it passed me by two years ago. But you know how few and far between HTs are. It's also a big, scary ask to pick up and move away from your entire life for the promise of an uncertain better one. This is where I wonder if it's more escapism than realism, at least for me. I hear about the communities out there not doing well, and wonder if there isn't a bug in the system. Like if you stay where you are, or go and build something new, either way, maybe we're being set up to be scattered like the apostles on the night Christ was arrested.
Yeah. That was my thinking exactly when we were at HT. It took a massive, live-changing even to pry us out of that place because we were there for all the same reasons, and it seemed HIGHLY unlikely that we'd find anything else comparable to it "out there." Weirdly enough, though, we did. I mean, it's not the same - not even close - but about five minutes into our first liturgy there, I was saying, "Uh oh..." I turned to my wife and I could see it in her eyes as well. She mouthed the words, "Are we home?"
Given that it was an Orthodox community, that was extremely disconcerting.
I don't want to pose as an advice-giver in this thing (which I do about three times per week, inexplicably and inexcusably), but if it were just you, me, a bonfire and a couple of beers, I'd say, "Figure out what you want to do and then do it. Weigh the pros and cons of leaving the HT area, but weigh the spiritual/communal benefits of HT highly."
The way I look at the HT years is this: It was boot camp for work we were called to do elsewhere. HT isn't just a hospital for broken sinners, it's most definitely a boot camp. And while I wish we could have stayed in its penumbra indefinitely, it seems pretty clear that we were called elsewhere. It's almost as if God set things up to make the need for moving on obvious even to me... Strange...
We and some other friends often talk dreamily about building the compound. Is it escapism? Sure. But people say that about monasteries too and the world would be far poorer if they ceased to exist. We think about this not only for the reasons you suggest, but also thinking about retirement. A multigenerational compound with good values BUT that also doesn't go barmy (always the risk)? Sounds wonderful.
I’m convinced it can be done. After all, it’s how it used to be. It was just life. The difference now is that the definition of baseline reality is up for grabs. It’s not about getting away from sin (good luck with that!), it’s about simply operating within reality.
You hit another one out of the ballpark!
I have been thinking about this topic so much over the past few years. It's a little easier for me to stay where I am since I don't have kids to worry about. Sometimes I wonder if it's possible to live alongside a collapsing society and be able to survive without being part of a Benedict Option-type community. It really feels like going completely underground or "Shut up and bake the cake" are going to be the only two feasible options in the nearer-than-not future. Where it's hard for me is the fence-sitting of wanting to stay close enough to HT and ignore society until the last possible minute to get out, hoping (assuming) I'll see the last minute coming from afar rather than realizing it passed me by two years ago. But you know how few and far between HTs are. It's also a big, scary ask to pick up and move away from your entire life for the promise of an uncertain better one. This is where I wonder if it's more escapism than realism, at least for me. I hear about the communities out there not doing well, and wonder if there isn't a bug in the system. Like if you stay where you are, or go and build something new, either way, maybe we're being set up to be scattered like the apostles on the night Christ was arrested.
Yeah. That was my thinking exactly when we were at HT. It took a massive, live-changing even to pry us out of that place because we were there for all the same reasons, and it seemed HIGHLY unlikely that we'd find anything else comparable to it "out there." Weirdly enough, though, we did. I mean, it's not the same - not even close - but about five minutes into our first liturgy there, I was saying, "Uh oh..." I turned to my wife and I could see it in her eyes as well. She mouthed the words, "Are we home?"
Given that it was an Orthodox community, that was extremely disconcerting.
I don't want to pose as an advice-giver in this thing (which I do about three times per week, inexplicably and inexcusably), but if it were just you, me, a bonfire and a couple of beers, I'd say, "Figure out what you want to do and then do it. Weigh the pros and cons of leaving the HT area, but weigh the spiritual/communal benefits of HT highly."
The way I look at the HT years is this: It was boot camp for work we were called to do elsewhere. HT isn't just a hospital for broken sinners, it's most definitely a boot camp. And while I wish we could have stayed in its penumbra indefinitely, it seems pretty clear that we were called elsewhere. It's almost as if God set things up to make the need for moving on obvious even to me... Strange...