Communities #203
Summer 2024
Note: You can order a copy of this issue here.
The stories in Communities #203, Summer 2024, “Conflict and Connection,” explore the gifts as well as the challenges of conflict—the opportunities it offers to deepen our connections, to grow, to learn about ourselves, to bond more strongly in community. Authors describe what happens when conflict is handled well, and when it isn’t; when it’s a sign of community health, and when it’s part of group disintegration. We also look at tools for strengthening group connection in preparation for weathering inevitable disharmony and adversity.
Letters: Challenging Behaviors: Doing vs. Being by Diana Leafe Christian
Labeling and name-calling others usually makes others feel terrible and exacerbates the conflict, like throwing gasoline on a fire.
Notes from the Editor: Mirrors and Windows by Chris Roth
A timeless theme finds timely expressions, a remembered song mirrors community experience, and conflict opens new windows.
Instead of seeing conflict as something frightening to avoid, we can see it as something quintessentially human that enlivens our interactions, deepens our connections, and enriches our communities.
Confronting Conflict by Tracy Matfin
To turn toward, or “confront,” the other creates opportunity for growth and vulnerability. The key ingredient is the choice to return to relationship in the face of adversity again and again.
Managing Conflict: What Really Matters by Kara Huntermoon
All relationships involve unresolvable conflict. How do we manage conflict in ways that maintain and strengthen our commitments to each other?
“You Spot It, You Got It”—Challenges of the Mirror by Riana Good
I don’t always want to feel the contraction, desire for distance, sometimes even disgust or disdain that arise for me with Liza. I don’t want to feel that way about myself or Liza or anyone or anything!
Weaving Resilience through Conflict by Marissa Percoco
Rarely do things play out as they are imagined, especially as our more internalized stories, such as those of money and wealth, or sex and power, begin to play out in our tight-knit interactions.
My Minority Report by Lev Bronstein
I put a lot of value on broad inclusion, on making sure everybody was reasonably taken care of, while many others had narrowed their “circles of inclusion” to their own families and fellow employees.
Starting a New Cohousing Group by Kate Nichols
After we moved in, it became apparent that in rushing to complete the buildings, we had failed to form a solid community, one where we cared about each other.
A Pie in the Face by Graham Ellis
Without a well researched and enforceable policy to resolve conflicts, a community can become divided and weak with disharmony, distrust, and brutal criticism.
Burnt Out and Resentful by Andrew McLean
The poison of resentment leaches from the affected person to the rest of the community. Resentfulness is a cancer to community. We have all seen it, but how do we stop it?
Community Is Messy—So Why Bother? by Stephen Guesman
We chose to be interdependent, and we’ve apparently decided that the benefits are worth the costs. But everyone’s got to do that calculation for themselves. How much celebrating do you have time for?
Introverts Unite! by Alan O’Hashi
If you’re considering plopping down your life savings to buy a house in a community, you should at least go into it with knowledge about the quirks your potential neighbors may hold.
Three Flipping Points: Conflict into Connection by Hugh Perry
It was a great relief to step out of a system that feeds on gossip and into an alternate system that explores the opposite.
Avocado Conflict by Laura-Marie Strawberry Nopales
Sometimes my housemates’ food restrictiveness can look to me like eating disorder. Some people seem to hate themselves around food and pleasure.
The Wealth of Music-Making in a Multigenerational Cohousing Community by Dan Parker
Our multigenerational, tight-knit neighborhood attracts families and elders alike, and this ethos is usually at its finest display during one of our concerts.
Working Effectively with Especially Challenging Behaviors, Part Eight: Why Most Communities Do Not—and Cannot—Deal Directly with these Behaviors (And What Your Community Can Do Instead) by Diana Leafe Christian
Living in community doesn’t have to include the suffering of individually targeted members, community-wide demoralization, nor people fleeing meetings or leaving the group.
Cooperation, Competition, and the Pursuit of Excellence by Paul Freundlich
Cooperation and its handmaids, collaboration, communion, and community, have been around a lot longer than humanity, and if we insist on mucking up the planet, may outlast our demise.
REACH
Quintessential Commune Moments by Valerie, RatzoSkull, McCune
The very person you were just animatedly bad-mouthing emerges from right around the corner where you are standing…
ON THE COVER: Firefly Gathering Executive Director Marissa Percoco and Equity Committee Lead Jae Ortiz stand together at morning circle, speaking on equity and accountability at Firefly Gathering 2023. (See article, pages 20-23.) For info on the 2024 Gathering, July 16-21 in Green Mountain, North Carolina, visit fireflygathering.org. Photo by Sarah Tew.