Quality of Life Goals

After Christelle read further in Holistic Management, we realized we were going about the Quality of Life goal setting incorrectly. Instead of all of us working together to create these goals, it is best if I and Christelle create these goals and then look to our advisors to help us clarify them. The burden is on us to create the goals since we will actually be living and working on the School of Work and Prayer. Our advisors have the task of viewing these goals with critical eyes.

This morning Christelle and I worked together to come up with a complete list of Quality of Life goals. These goals describe the quality of life that we are looking to lead on the School of Work and Prayer. Please offer your comments, questions, and suggestions to help clarify our thoughts. Our Quality of Life goals are given below.

Financial and Economic

Wholesome food, with variety from eating in season, including food from crops and livestock (treated respectfully) and hunting and gathering wild foods from thriving animals and plants.

A community of joy where feasts and celebrations spring from Christ among us, in union with his church.

Long-lasting, beautiful, serviceable and modest clothing, with emphasis on hand-sewing.

Long-lasting, beautiful, useful and simple shelters, with emphasis on natural materials gathered on-site (wood, stone, water, etc.) and emphasis on hand built.

Personal or family ownership of personal goods, homes and kitchen gardens; common ownership of other buildings and implements.

Health maintained through preventative health practices (healthy start for babies and children; dental and physical check-ups, consuming wholesome food and clean water, hygiene, moral lifestyle choices).

Sick and dying personally tended whenever possible.

Whenever possible, members would be born and die surrounded by those who love them.

Community funded health insurance.

Treatments for sickness of mind and heart.

A safe community where children can be without fear or danger, where adults would be a trusted source of potential help rather than potential harm.

Financial security by owning property outright (no debts)

Striving to never pay a bill by doing personally whatever needs to be done.

Relationships

Within our family: Our work would be done at home or close to home and interruptible whenever possible. We will worship, pray, play, and work together.

With other community families/persons: Respect their personal property, space and need for privacy. Act as true friends to them – loyal, encouraging, helpful, good listeners, slow to anger and slow to speak. Be a safe and welcoming family for visiting children.

With students: Respect their personal property, space, and privacy. If interest, mentor them. Listen to them.

With clergy: Obey and pray for them. Welcome them into our home and family life.

With guests/visitors: Feed, clothe, shelter, and affirm them (as needed) as hidden Christs.

With our neighbors: Invite them to community events. Be open and honest in our interactions with them.

Areas for Challenge and Growth

Plenty of books and visiting lecturers whom we can serve and from whom we can learn.

Daily mass and adoration chapel.

Silence.

Yielding and responding to natural disasters or inclement weather.

Leisure and instruments or tools to learn new skills and hone talents.

Purpose and Contribution to Society

To give persons and families the opportunity to live in a place that integrates work, faith, friends, and family.

A training center where persons encounter God in prayer and offer up each moment as an act of worship and for love of neighbor.

A visible sign to the world of the importance of the personal and spiritual over the impersonal and material.

A community that is structured to live in harmony with the natural world and its seasons and laws and meditates on the deeper truths that they contain.

A safe haven for the forgotten, the lonely, the poor.

Quality of Life Statement - Part 1

The next task in the process of goal-setting is to work out a “Quality of Life” statement. This part of the process involves writing short phrases that express how life on the School of Work and Prayer would be lived.

The Quality of Life statement will have several parts. The first part of the Quality of Life statement concerns the material world, basic needs, and financial or economic goals. Let’s brainstorm together many phrases which express God’s view, including Biblical, Catholic Church and Catholic Worker teachings, about these things. (After the brainstorming process, we’ll sum up the ideas expressed here).

Here are some phrases for starters . . .

-- Self-supporting as much as possible (of the principle of subsidiarity)
-- Gospel poverty (cf. HAPPY ARE YOU POOR, Fr. Thomas Dubay)
-- Generosity to the poor
-- Debt-free
-- Hospitality essential
-- Distributive economics (of Chesterton, Belloc, Maurin)
-- God owns all things – we simply use them for a time
-- God is the source of all good things

What are your thoughts?

Statement of Purpose

THE MAIN PURPOSE OF THE SCHOOL OF WORK AND PRAYER IS TO PROVIDE PRACTICAL INSTRUCTION IN CARMELITE CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER AND SANCTIFYING WORK.

The Beginning of the School of Work and Prayer:

Christelle and I are committed to building the School of Work and Prayer. At this time we have a vision in our heads as to what the School of Work and Prayer is (this is the written proposal many of you have seen), but we need to flesh the vision out on paper as the first step to making it happen. We need clarification of thought. That’s where we need your input and help.

We are using a book called HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT to guide us in this initial planning process. This book was written to aid intentional communities in long term effective land management and development. Through this planning process we hope to provide as stable and lasting a foundation, as humanly possible, for the School of Work and Prayer.

So, for our first task in this planning process, we need to write a SHORT statement of purpose, in ten words or less, for the School of Work and Prayer. We have already thought of one and here it is: THE MAIN PURPOSE OF THE SCHOOL OF WORK AND PRAYER IS TO PROVIDE PRACTICAL INSTRUCTION IN CARMELITE CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER AND SANCTIFYING WORK.

What do YOU think the purpose of the School of Work and Prayer is? What do you think of the purpose as we have written it?

There will be a 2 week comment/work period for this task.