Communard Interview #2: Robert Dove

Robert Dove-McClellan (also known as Brother Robert Julian, nOC) has been an activist, an administrator, and a cook.  He lived in a communal house in Philadelphia as part of Movement for a New Society before moving to the Boston area where he and I built three communities together–including Common Threads which became a community in dialogue with the FEC.  He is currently involved with the Fresh Pond Friends Meeting and the Ecumenical Order of Charity and writes poetry.  He is also a singer and a religious historian.

Raven: When did you first hear of income sharing and when did you first practice it?

Robert: Actually, the practice came first; we didn’t have a name for it at the time. This was with a small community of people in West Philadelphia, a fairly dense and multi-racial neighborhood in the 70’s. Some of the people in our fledgling community had shared expenses with others for particular items or events, but this was on an entirely different level. And it was motivated by simple justice. One of the adults in our community had three children, ages, 14, 11 and 7. She worked a full time job as a public health nurse, and gave over rent money for 4 people. The rest of us were single and didn’t need to work full time. The sharing started out by simply sharing responsibility for the children, just in very practical ways – lunches for school, being there when the kids came home, homework, bed time – stuff like that. Then we moved to sharing the expenses of the rent. From there we just took a big leap and pooled our income and treated our income and expenses as one unit. We had meetings to decide about budgets and unexpected expenses like any family would. The thing is, this was in late 70’s; we didn’t have computers, we didn’t have credit cards or ATM cards or any of the mechanics we have today to make it easy to track income and expenses. The Petty Cash box was very active and a total bear to balance out at the end of the month. But we did it and it worked.

Robert Dove

Raven: When I first met you, you were looking for folks to build community with.  Can you tell me about that?

Robert: I had moved to New England and was hoping to help create something akin to what I had experienced in Philadelphia. I was living at the Friends Meeting in Cambridge and you and I got together because we had both been told that the other was interested in community and we should definitely meet and talk. I remember being in the living room of the apartment I was sharing with others; it was a Sunday afternoon and we had the place to ourselves. In no time at all, we had covered the walls with flip chart paper, outlining the things we felt were most important, the quality of life we hoped for and even a time line of sorts. The one thing we were certain of was that we would have to “risk it” in order to find out what worked and what didn’t.

Raven: What did you learn from our three attempts at community building?

Robert: Each time it lasted longer, but the first two didn’t have children and it felt like it was more an economic thing and didn’t, from the start, feel long term. I think it matters that the first two were rented properties. In the third community, income sharing was one of the most radical things we did and one of the easiest parts of living together. Our disagreements about money when we had any were easily negotiated and solved. It didn’t hurt that we had a joint bank account, a credit cards we all used, and many ways to track what we were doing. What was hard was combining raising children, with income paying jobs, with care of a house we actually owned, while engaged in social change activities and finding the time for personal growth as well. Maybe if we had lived a bit more rurally, it might have been easier, but I’m not sure of that. I think finally what became clear over time was that each of us had somewhat different ideas of what living in community would be like. Despite having talked a lot, it turned out our definitions of or at least our feelings about community were different.

Common Threads ~ 1995

Raven: What were the best things about communal living and what were the hardest?

Robert: The best things for me were the interaction with the children, the communal meals, the celebratory events to which we invited many of our friends and the discoveries of group and even one on one dynamics which happened over time. We involved our children in almost every aspect of our lives to the extent they were able. And I think they really grew emotionally because of it. They loved participating in activities and decision-making with the adults.

I guess I’ve named the hardest already, except to add that personalities seemed to have changed in the environment of community. We didn’t know how to deal with anxiety or depression very well and the constant attention needed to live and work in an urban environment with all our interests, took its toll sometimes in ways of which we were unaware. We had people who were struggling with finding meaningful income, people who had long commutes, people with aging parents ─ there was a lot going on. But that was who we were; I’m not sure how we could have managed it better.

Common Threads ~ 1998

Raven: What do you see as the role of spirituality in secular communities?

Robert: Well, we didn’t have a single-track version of spirituality and I think that to the extent a group of people can support the spiritual quest of each of its members, in all the variety of their expressions, a community can find itself enriched. I remember the first Christmas time we spent together and the discussion of Christmas trees. It turned out that the people who had been raised Christian had the biggest problems with the Tree. Other people saw it as a lovely winter holiday and enjoyed decorating the house. Of course, in our community, we celebrated Hanukkah, the Solstice, Christmas and Kwanzaa. So candles and calendars were everywhere. And we made sure to have a working fire extinguisher. Lots of small take-aways: I still remember a chant that one person, who was Jewish and had been raised in South Africa, taught us.

Brother Robert Julian

Raven: Anything else that you’d like to share with the Commune Life readers?

Robert: People venturing into community often have had difficult lives dealing with our so-called modern world. We arrive somewhat wounded, even if we’re not aware of it. Face it, our Western culture is a set up for loneliness and pessimism. So, just like a large, extended family, people in community have to be prepared to be flexible and discern the difference between what they want and what they need, because they won’t get everything they want. But in the process, sometimes you find out something which is really wonderful and fulfilling which you never thought of before and it turns out better than you imagined it would. The other thing is, don’t let stuff fester; if you can’t talk to someone you’re having a problem with, get another person to join in to help the process. Do everything you can to nip resentment in the bud. And don’t exaggerate. And don’t catastrophize.