Trouble in Paradise

FIC has been publishing Communities Directory since 1990, first as a book, and then (starting in 2004) as a searchable online database. It is the thing that the Fellowship is best known for.

While FIC tries hard to be even-handed and fair in how the information is displayed, readers occasionally give us critical feedback about the listings—we get about 2-4 complaints per year. The complaints sort into two kinds: a) someone is unhappy with FIC, perhaps because they feel they've not been treated fairly or respectfully; or b) someone is unhappy with a listed community. Most feedback falls into the latter category.

When this happens we investigate and try to resolve any concerns. It might be that a reader has found the listed information to be misleading. Or it might be that their experience with he community has been upsetting and has nothing to do with the listing. In either case, we step in and try to sort things out.

Sometimes it's simply a misunderstanding. Sometimes there's a disagreement and FIC can play a role as a third party to deescalate the tension and get things proceeding again on an even keel.

Sometimes though, it's too late by the time we arrive on the scene, and the best we can hope for is an amicable parting of the ways.

This past week we fielded a complaint of this last kind and it was a challenge to work through.

We try to approach these situations in a consistent way: our first effort is to reach out to all parties and ask to hear their story about what's happened. Once we have that, we reach across to the folks on the other side and ask what portions of the story, if any, they agree with. In this case, there was precious little common ground. Sadly, both sides claimed that the other had been threatening and belligerent, yet owned none of that behavior themselves (even to the point of having made death threats!). While I did not hear any reports of physical violence having taken place, it was hard to imagine a situation more polarized.

The precipitating issue was whether investors in the community had been promised a warranty title to their property, and the extent to which the lack of a title was making it difficult for people to sell their homes.

The disgruntled folks claimed that they were misled and that their life savings were tied up in property that they could not sell. The satisfied majority claimed that everyone was informed about the title issue up front, and that many property owners have been able to buy and sell their community property even so.

So, while there was agreement that individuals were not being given warranty titles, there was no agreement about when people were apprised of that, nor about the consequences that followed from it.

It is not FIC's role, in situations like this, to act as judge, or to determine who is in the right. Instead, we simply establish where there is common ground and where there isn't. Once we have that sorted, we try to get clear what outcome is desired and help all parties work toward a workable resolution.

In the instance last week it was hard to understand why both both parties were still living together. The hurt and mistrust ran so deep that it was almost impossible to picture a reconciliation.

On both sides of this issue, it took several communications before I got anything other than an attack on the other side, in an attempt to convince me that "those folks" were evil. When I wrote a straight forward summary (something like, "The stories don't match up well, and each side is accusing the other of threatening behavior, without owning that any of that is being done by them.") what I'd get back is more "evidence" of the other side's perfidy. Further, they were starting to suspect me of being a dupe of the other side because I wasn't immediately persuaded by their condemnation. Yuck.

While it may be temping in such circumstances to despair of ever getting out of the starting gate, I think what was mainly going on was that everyone was pretty upset and my summaries were insufficient to establish that I had fully heard them. ("If I really go it how upsetting this was, I wouldn't be so goddamn calm.")

• • •

I tell this story because it illuminates one of the pitfalls encountered when publishing a Directory where we do not have the resources to investigate and vet each listing. Instead, we rely on communities to be up front and accurate in their self-descriptions, and then we rely on readers to let us know if something seems out of whack.

While this works quite well in general, it's sobering to see people ostensibly dedicated to cooperative principles and harmonious co-existence engaging in war mongering with one another. To be clear, I don't think intentional communities will eliminate conflict in the world—and neither is that the position of  FIC—yet we do think that living cooperatively can be a building block of world peace. It all hinges on how people (and the groups they create) respond to disagreement.

What is dismaying about the group I was working with last week is that everyone I communicated with (about half a dozen) seemed to be more concerned with being right than being in good relationship with one another. In fact, each went so far as to label those on the other side of the aisle as evil and irredeemable. While there is considerable room for people to have differing opinions about what constitutes the most hopeful approach to world peace, I'm pretty certain that the path being followed by this group will not lead there.

Brooklyn

I watched the first-run movie Brooklyn last night and was very touched by the portrayal of a twenty-something Irish immigrant named Eilis (pronounced AY-lis), played by actress Saoirse Ronan, who comes over to the land of opportunity in the 1952, when she accepts that there's no future for her in socially stultified and economically depressed Ireland, County Wexford.

Eilis is a good woman, caught between the Irish culture she grew up with and the American culture she grew to love. This is the story of a woman who endures hardship (both her father and sister die while she's in her 20s), finds herself, and then has to choose between returning to Ireland or continuing to stay in the US—with the added complication that she has decent job prospects and attractive suitors in both places. While there are many tears along the way, this is the story of how Eilis comes to make her decision.
Although it doesn't always work out so well in real life, in this instance the heroine's good character (modest, hard working, and kind) is rewarded by drawing out those qualities in those around her. As we all know of occurrences where it doesn't play out that way (who promised that life is fair?), it's refreshing and hopeful when virtue is rewarded. Witness:

o  Eilis and her suitor in America, Frankie Fiorello (James DiGiacomo) 
She's Irish and he's Italian, which right away creates a dynamic tension. Immigrants tend to be hyper-sensitive to ethnicity and West Side Story romances don't tend to end well, even if they're relocated to Brooklyn (just ask Tony and Maria). But you know you're in for a different treatment once you digest that the male lead is shorter than his romantic partner (when was the last time you saw that on the silver screen?). And unlike the prototypical oversexed Italian male ("all hands," as Eilis jokes), Frankie takes his time and courts respectfully. He's attentive without pressing, and in time Eilis responds.

Amazingly, Frankie masks his abiding love of his hometown Dodgers until it's accidentally revealed at the important first dinner when he brings Eilis home to meet his family (and she is put to the test of eating spaghetti in front of Italians). Baseball is important, but love and family come first.

He is an apprentice plumber, and it's clear early on that Eilis is the more intelligent of the two (in addition to her day job working as a sales clerk in an upscale women's clothing store, Bartocci's, she goes to night school to learn double entry accounting), yet they don't let that potential ego-deflater derail their romance. Eilis doesn't rub it in and Frankie doesn't get all ruffled feathered. They meet on the heart level, and they share the typical immigrant yearning to build a better life. They keep their eyes on the prize.

o  Eilis and her Bartocci supervisor, Miss Fortini (Jessica Paré)
Eilis' first job is already lined up for her before she lands in America, assuring that she'll have an income right away (whew). Yet she doesn't like the work, and quickly goes about trying to figure out how to improve her lot. Her strict supervisor is the stern-faced Miss Fortini, who constantly admonishes Eilis to chat up the customers in the never-ending effort to secure their becoming repeat customers.

Despite Miss Fortini's sacred attention to the bottom line, she also has a heart. When Eilis gets homesick for Ireland in the first few months, Miss Fortini doesn't crack out the whip. Instead, she asks in the parish priest, Father Flood, who guides her through this unavoidable, yet temporary sickness of the spirit. When news arrives that Eilis' dear sister, Rose, has died back in Ireland, Miss Fortini again joins with Father Flood to break the awful news. And when Eilis needs a "bathing costume" for her first trip to Coney Island with Frankie, it is Miss Fortini who personally fits her and advises about color.

o  Eilis and Father Flood (Jim Broadbent)
In this era of Catholic priests who have been systematically revealed to have misused their power, it is nice to exhale in the presence of the avuncular Father Flood, who evokes Fathers O'Malley (Bing Crosby) and Fitzgibbon (Barry Fitzgerald) in Going My Way, which, not coincidentally, is set in New York in 1944. Father Flood helps Eilis through several rough patches—homesickness for Ireland, loss of her sister, and understanding the poignancy of the Irish elderly poor on Christmas, who are otherwise alone at the end of lives that have been exhausted by doing the thankless dirty work of building America.

o  Eilis and her suitor in Ireland, Jim Farrell (Domhnall Gleeson) 
When Eilis returns home to say goodbye to her sister and to visit her mother (now all alone after losing both her husband and the one daughter to death and the other daughter to immigration), she unexpectedly rediscovers the charm of the old country and at the same time encounters opportunity where there had been none before. There is an immediate opening in bookkeeping, taking over the position that Rose held before her, and there is Jim Farrell, a landed local with prospects for taking over his parents tavern and who is clearly smitten with the now-exotic, fresh-from-America Eilis.

Paralleling the gentle approach adopted by Frankie in America, Jim swallows his pride and carefully builds his case for being a bona fide suitor. How often do young men of privilege grow up that fast? While there's no doubt that love can be a powerful motivator, this was nonetheless an inspiring transformation.

• • •

Movies like Brooklyn make me think about the prospects for effecting world peace through cross-cultural relationships. While not fast, I'm not sure there's a better way.

To be sure, both Eilis and Frankie are European and Catholic, so the distance to bridge is not as far as it might be. Still, as Frankie's eight-year-old younger brother declaims baldly at the dinner table—when Eilis is visiting for the first time—"We hate the Irish." Although the rest of the family was on good behavior for Frankie's sake, the fact is that in 1952 there were generally strict social limits placed on associations between first generation Italian and Irish immigrants. Frankie was crossing the line attending the Irish dance where he met Eilis, and she was bold to not dismiss his amorous attention outright.

There was a time when Brooklyn (the city) was at the very center of the American melting pot, when the torrent of post-World War II immigrants were being funneled through the portal of Ellis Island. Today, with the ports of entry much more diffuse, almost every urban center in America experiences some amount of in-migration. The challenge is welcoming cultural diversity without aspiring to homogenization (think mixed salad, not purée). Though not without bumps in the road (think Gangs of New York, showcasing Gotham's cultural intolerance in 1863), it remains America's strength that we know how to integrate immigrants and achieve thereby a certain hybrid vigor—which I note in sharp contrast to the anti-Muslim hysteria now gripping this country.

Brooklyn (the movie) is inspiring because it reminds us of our better selves—as humans first, and Americans second. If slow and steady wins the race (to understand race before we kill each other in our ignorance), then let's celebrate the power for good and understanding that arises from relationships that span cultural differences, one couple at a time.