brandon williamscraig

Community on Purpose

On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 2:29 PM, I wrote:

Brandon here, requesting an assist.

My Dad has been working from Dallas as my dissertation editor, using online tech, and we have been having marvelous success working toward my Fall 2009 drop-deadline. He has volunteered to fly to Berkeley for much of April in order that we might create a writing retreat to complete as much as is possible in a month. Even though he is an amazing jazz musician with psychological savvy and good social skills, this will be even more spiffy if he doesn't have to sleep on the couch in our tiny apartment all month.

He will be arriving April 7th and leaving the 29th. Being able to put him up somewhere in the East Bay for any portion of that time would be a huge help, even if only for one or two nights. Please don't hesitate to let me know, even if the possibility of a spot is uncertain.
Come hell or high water, this dissertation will be done this year.
Many people receiving this email have been wonderfully helpful and for that I am profoundly grateful.

Warmly,

B

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Today I wrote:

Brandon here with an amazing report I thought you might want to hear.

At the end of March I sent out a request for help finding David Williams a place to stay through April (no small amount of time) while he is in Berkeley with us.

In case you ever wonder what kind of resources are available to people who intentionally

participate in building community, like yourself, my request activated positive responses by at least (and with as few overlaps as possible) two intentional communities, including Crescent Sangha House community and Berkeley Cohousing; 14 families and 10 individuals in 7 cites from Association Building Community, Aikido of Berkeley, Epworth United Methodist Church, and a fantasy gaming group; the local Green Party; individual undergraduate and graduate students at UC; local clergy unrelated to any of the groups mentioned above; denizens of the worlds first dog park; and a veterinary office, not to mention people too far away to really count but who sent supportive suggestions (via Facebook, Twitter, Skype, freenode, text messages, blog comments, etc.) nonetheless.

My Dad now has a lovely bedroom in a friendly house less than three miles away, for his entire stay. And huge thanks to you all, including the 27 people who have continued to follow-up, requesting updates even after their original positive response.

And, to those critics who say building community on purpose will never become an adequate response to the alienation of an industrialized human imagination, I throw my arms wide and grin!

B

Labels: ABC, community, family, kin

| posted by Unknown @ 4/03/2009 01:41:00 PM

Getting hit with bunches of quotes of late. Thought I'd just put some here as I get them.

"The moving finger of God in human history points ever in the same direction. There must be community." -Howard Thurman, from A Strange Freedom, p. 89

“In aikido we do not train to become powerful or to throw down some opponent. Rather we train in hopes of being of some use, however small our role may be, in the task of bringing peace to mankind around the world.” - Morihei Ueshiba, O'Sensei, Founder of Aikido

"Fairy Tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten." - G.K.Chesterton

Labels: community

| posted by Unknown @ 10/09/2008 02:47:00 PM

Communitarianism - the New God Image
from the StoryField Conference 2007

Labels: community, crisis, worldism

| posted by Unknown @ 12/09/2007 10:30:00 PM

We just returned from the Epworth UMC Retreat at Monte Toyon. I've uploaded the photos I collected from several shutterbugs to Flickr for easy access. If clicking on the link doesn't work for you cut and past this URL http://www.flickr.com/gp/31872386@N00/155D0H

The ropes installations were lots of fun, the music and worship were wonderful, and I 'm looking forward to next time. Just like last year I walked away with the desire to spend more QT (quality time) with Epworthians, sitting and talking, chewing on ideas and swapping stories, etc. Community in depth is too precious to really dive in only once or twice a year.

Labels: community, Epworth, image, Methodist

| posted by Unknown @ 5/08/2007 10:27:00 AM