Posted 359 days ago

A Celtic Community for Sustainable Spirituality and Life

by Tom Sine, MSA Founder

We seem to be racing headlong into increasingly uncertain times as we recover from the worse global economic recession in 70 years. Unfortunately it seems likely that more waves of change are on the way, and our most vulnerable neighbors are likely to suffer most. It will be increasingly important for followers of Jesus to create ways to decrease our economic vulnerability in order to increase our availability to those in need.

The real possibility of a peak oil crisis within a decade also makes it important to also consider creating more sustainable lifestyles and spiritual practices that can see us through these turbulent times.

We at MSA want to help people prepare for these rapidly changing times several different ways. We have just designed a curriculum for local churches to help individuals and congregations create new ways to be something of God’s compassion to those in need. We are also creating two communities that offer a new ways of living in times like these.

Some of us in MSA live in the Mustard Seed House in MSA and seek to follow a rule of life and create a more sustainable lifestyle. We also want to create a counter-part rural Celtic Monastic Community that follows the same rule of life. Our hope is to create both a new model of highly sustainable rural living and a new model of semi-monastic community deeply grounded in Celtic Christian spirituality other older traditions such as the Coptic that reflects a love of God, of neighbor, and of God’s good creation.

This Celtic Community will be constructed on a forty-acre lot on Camano Island, an hour north of Seattle. It will be a rural counterpart to the Mustard Seed House, the urban community associated with MSA. Both communities will share a common ethos, a common commitment to sustainable living, and a common Rule of Life.

This rural community will be physically designed to fit into its natural setting and reflect something of the spirit of a seventh-century Celtic monastery. Working with our architect David Vandervort, we also want to reflect the highest level of concern for sustainable design. We are exploring everything from rammed earth and straw bale construction to solar and wind energy. We plan to plant an orchard and garden to provide a high level of food self-sufficiency for the residents.

The people who are a part of this community will seek to create a highly sustainable way of life together with everyone sharing in routines of nurture, harvest, processing, and celebration. These monastic community members will also seek to create a more sustainable rhythm of life based around morning and evening prayers, spiritual direction, and service to those in the larger community.

At the core of this new monastic community will be a deep commitment to God and to a broad spectrum of Christian spiritual practices, drawing particularly from the beauty and insights of the Celtic Christian tradition as well as other ancient traditions like the Coptic. Our intent is for this community not only to be rooted in a rich spirituality and a different rhythm of life, but to also seek to embody something of the values of God’s new world that is already here. In both our urban and rural communities, we want to model a way of life that is simpler and more sustainable in addition to offering a more celebrative way of life than anything offered by the global mall.

As part of this plan, we want to find some modest ways to serve the world and the followers of Jesus who are searching for both new models of sustainable Christian community and more sustainable spiritual practices for life in uncertain times. These include:

• A listening/praying retreat site for those that want to be present to God and God’s good creation with a community that seeks to embody a new way of living.
• An exploratory place for college students and young adults who want to spend a month or a quarter exploring a broad range of Christian prayer traditions to develop their own spiritual disciplines for life and leadership.
• A learning place for those that want to learn about creating a more sustainable life focusing on intensive organic gardening, food processing, storage, and preparation, plus learning more sustainable, functional arts for life in uncertain times.

• A creating place for those who want to come together to imagine innovative new ways to be a difference and make a difference in a way that reflects something of that new world that is already here. We want to have a place where people can imagine new ways to both give expression to God’s new order as well create new forms of community, advocacy, social entrepreneurship, and celebration that engage tomorrow’s challenges. We want to become a center half way between Seattle and Vancouver for imagination where people can birth new innovations for life, community and engagement for changing times.

Would you be interested in journeying with us as we continue to imagine and design this Celtic Monastic Village? We are looking for interested people to join us on a Celtic dreaming journey to help us imagine everything from the physical design of the site to the community and the programs we offer in spirituality, sustainability, and imagining new expressions of God’s new order. If you are interested in becoming a part of the Celtic dreaming, please let us know.

It is our hope that the Celtic Community will enable people everywhere to begin to imagine new expressions that are deeply rooted in Christian spirituality and deeply committed to sustainable lifestyles for life in increasingly uncertain times.

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