Life in community

Around the time Brenda and I put our Michigan house up for sale, six months into the pandemic, we spent some time discussing what we wanted our life in Toronto to look like. As we now prepare to move for a second time within Toronto – our landlord wants us out of our rental by the end of June – I was reminded of that discussion. Two things stood out. One, we decided that we were ready to sell our car and go carless. Two, we would like to live in with housemates, in some form of Christian community or fellowship. Back in the Netherlands we were each part of several intentional communities, from small to very large (150 people), and it was a formative influence on our married life. Both of those things worked out – up to a point.

Moving to Toronto

We did sell our car, but discovered that carshares and rental cars did not work well for holiday visits to family deep in southern Ontario. I remember well how we came back from a fall visit to Brenda’s sister with a few pumpkins and a half bushel of apples, which we then had to lug back home on the Toronto subway after returning our car at the airport. (Rental cars come cheaper there.) So now we are car-owners once again.

In our first Toronto house we were joined within a few months by an enthusiastic graduate student whose housing arrangement had fallen apart. In our next house he was joined by another student; all told five people in their mid-20s have lived with us. I believe all are now doing well – four of them are now married – and there were many good things about living together, but now that they’ve all moved out, I realize that we had hoped for more. Our life together always remained a temporary arrangement for practical reasons. An element of growth was missing, perhaps.

Unforgettable moments

There is something addictive about intentional community life. People like ourselves try it again and again, in spite of failures and disappointments. It is great for unexpected encounters and surprising conversations. Sometimes it is outright grotesque. As a theology student at Utrecht, I once lived with Kurdish refugee teenagers of the Yazidi faith who suspected me of being a Muslim-lover. Shouts of “Taliban!” reverberated through the stony corridors of the ancient friary during the washing-up. Then one day, the TV was on and an elderly friar informed me that an apartment building had just collapsed. That day was 9/11. An unforgettable moment.

Being a Christian is not just about belief but more importantly, about the best life one can possibly live. To me, life together is just so much more interesting than any other kind of life. Who even needs a TV when there is an in-house chapel or a roof terrace for nighttime conversations? Why own a car if you can share one? I am sure our daughter Lydia would like it too.

We are now considering a form of community life again. The time may be ready for us. Until then, I hope we can all have the best possible conversations about what our Christian life should look like