I am in love with intentional community and am learning a bit better what that word “intentional” means.

I have been a part of three intentional communities in my life I think.

FLF aka Feels Like Friday. This is the close group of friends that formed at the beginning of my freshman year of college with one goal: to be friends… on purpose. We celebrate anniversaries, birthdays, half birthdays. We visit and vacation together. We have silly little traditions. And well, we do it on purpose. Admittedly, things have been harder since we’ve graduated, but FLF still goes on.

Project Fresh This is a dance group formed at Notre Dame. Project Fresh is a family though and our sessions are about a lot more than dancing. I originally joined because my roommate and I wanted to do something together for some roommate bonding. She got the chicken pox and I stayed in the group long after the one little show I’d planned on doing. It served as my much-needed therapy for Dance Co. of Notre Dame and St. Mary’s Dance and even Welsh Fam dance. Out of all the dance groups I belonged to, P Fresh was the most pure and the most holistic. We danced together, ate together, prayed together and really let ourselves become a part of one another’s lives. The family keeps growing with every new class, but alums know you never leave Project fresh. It’s like the mob I guess… well one of our mottos is “Join our army”

Then there’s the CCSC or Catholic Charities Service Corps. This is an intentionally intentional community. There are all kinds of different definitions and ideas of what that means. My small community, me and my 3 housemates, decided to define together what community means. We asked what our challenges were, what we needed, and what we hoped for. This was one of the most powerful community “nights” for me in the year. Well it wasn’t much of a night, it was two activities on two days about a week and a half apart. And it was the most powerful community night for me.

Community has its ups and downs. The challenges of living with others and not just next to them are great. I purposely left out our definition of intentional community (though it had a lot to do with that last sentence there) so that you could think about it. Maybe you are in one now, or about to be, or want to be, but think about it anyhow. What does that mean, intentional community? Feel free to use friends, google, God, or Roald Dahl to help you figure it out. Just figure it out and then maybe… try it. For two weeks… 3 months… 9 months… a year… a decade…

Intentional Community Resources

• www.ic.org – gives you information about different intentional communities including eco-villages, co-housing, communes, co-ops, and faith-based communities.
• www.cnvs.org – yerp. All the Christian volunteers please stand up. Looking for faith-based service? Chances are you’ll land yourself in an intentional community. Use the response guide to narrow down your choice. looking for 3 months overseas with less than 10 people in a situation that provides healthcare and a stipend? Found it! Next?
• www.three6ix5ive.wordpress.com – But also blogs like this one. Wanna learn about ashrams? Learn Need to understand volunteer life on a reservation. Understand. It helps.

I’ve realized this year how much better I function in an intentional community. It’s a practice of compassion. Even the very difficult moments are a little more comfortable because of the way the CCSC is set up. I won’t always have 2 designated “support people” I won’t always have a “keeper of the bigger picture” and I am told this is a “seed-planting” year. I have hoped this practice of living lovingly with one another would be fruitful, and I can already see it has been.