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.