|
JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, essayist Jim Fisher of the Kansas City
Star, on intentional communities. For the record, it was produced this
fall, before snow arrived in the Midwest.
JIM FISHER: It's squeezing time in the Midwest -- that autumnal lull,
when sorghum is pressed, its juices heated, and the end result becomes
a molasses-like sweetener, for cooking, breads, and cakes -- and of
course, slathering on biscuits and grits. The squeezing in tiny Sand
Hill, in northeastern Missouri, is vital. Residents here count on sorghum
sales to outsiders for a third of the $60,000 annually it costs them
to run their intentional community. Intentional community? Go back 30,
35 years ago, and say "hippie commune." Remember, the flowing
hair and the beads, the sexual license and rock and roll, mind-altering
substances far beyond beer? Visionary artists and political activists,
bohemians and beats, all dropping out, tuning in, and looking for some
sort of immediate societal perfection -- remember the images of young
people returning to the land, and of course, the resulting commune,
absolute antithesis of suburbia's manicured lawns. Who now, recalling
the tumult of the '60s, even we can furtively envy the repudiation of
that inner eye conformity of the '50s, would have imagined hippies in
sorghum squeezing. It's hard, laborious work, far removed from arguing
the fate of the world, or seeking some mystical inner truth. Sand Hill
is more than sorghum.
See this trailer? Inside is a miniature Amazon.com. A computer records
orders off the Internet, and processes credit cards. What's provided
is information on the intentional community movement, enough stuff for
a whole directory. Communities Directory is a slick, 456-page tome that
is sort of a cross between the "whole earth catalog" and the
"official airline guide." It leads one into an American subculture
that seemingly disappeared off the radar screen decades ago. How many
such communities? 700 that care to be listed, another 2,200 who want
anonymity. Numbers? Maybe 12,000, 15,000 people around the country,
living in places that range from urban homes to farms with several hundred
acres, most on the coast; 20 such places here in Missouri; one that
now ships a million pounds of nut butter a year. Variety? There's an
intentional community in West Virginia devoted to clowning -- clowning.
Nine such communities around the country advocate anarchy. Others focus
on group marriage, self sufficiency, visions, Zen, esoteric Christianity,
war tax resistance, and organic gardening. Name a gig, and there's likely
an intentional community advocating it. Laird Schaub is secretary of
the Fellowship for Intentional Community, which is publisher of the
guide. He's been here at Sand Hill almost 25 years.
LAIRD SCHAUB: We've got a database that lists up to 3,000 groups all
over the world, and of those, about a quarter of them want to let other
people know what they're doing, and make themselves available for people
to come and visit, and find out what it's about. We're getting people
of all ages -- definitely. People over 50 are considering moving to
community for the first time. In some cases, these are people who were
first excited about community living in the last boom, which happened
in the '60s and '70s, but weren't in a position in their life to try
it then, and their lives are so stressed and scattered that there isn't
that sense of connection. We're human... as humans, we're social animals.
We want connection and belonging with each other, and that's what community's
about.
JIM FISHER: Can that connection be re-attached? Who can say? There
are contented faces here, as the frothy green juice is processed. But
immediate societal perfection, utopia, the Zion sought 200 miles west
of here, by early day Mormons? Probably not -- at least in the fullness
of time, by which men and women measure their lives. Age replaces youth,
unbounded hopes are swapped grudgingly for common sense. In fervored
passion turns more and more to a refection about the irony of existence.
Yet for most, accompanying those changes comes an appreciation as old
as the race -- that of the changing seasons -- time now, when stalks
give up their liquids, and sustenance is taken from the land: Sorghum
squeezing time. I'm Jim Fisher.
|
