Page 15 - C.A.L.L. #36 - Summer 2013

KALEIDOSCOPE
be really livable any longer. In much of Camphill today most work is done by co-workers and
employees coming from outside. Camphill communities become more and more organisations
with a kind of occupational therapy. This is the destiny of most Camphill places, for example
in Switzerland.
The question is whether the fundamental idea of family sharing in the former way will be
possible any longer. Young co-workers are less able or not willing to live this kind of close
family sharing, because it does not meet their very individual imaginations and expectations.
All of us become individual beings with different ideas of life compared to former
generations. This is not a deficiency but a new task and challenge. The children of co-
workers and houseparents have individual habits and are not to be integrated so easily into
the concept of family sharing, especially when they leave childhood. Children become self-
conscious very early and have a strong will to go their own way. The villagers in the meantime
know about their rights – whether they understand them or not. Thus many houseparents are
over-burdened with all the special and individual wishes, needs and rights.
The consequence of that is that we have to think about how we can bring together the needs
of society and the potential of Camphill. We have to think about new forms of living together
and how we can shift to a new understanding of life sharing without giving up the idea of a
meaningful life together.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in 1933, at about the time we, the DISPEKER family fled from
Germany, together with thousands of other Jews, for dear life- leaving behind homes,
relatives, friends and possessions becoming rootless, wandering emigrants without any rights


“The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by
others, and by himself.”

Sadly, last week we received the very last issue of the KIG-Newsletter “Quarterly”, which
itself was an offshoot of the late “Gemeinde Heute”. Although nowadays this has become a
frequent occurrence, it came to me as an unexpected shock to witness one more step in what
appears to me an accelerating process of the unraveling of a formerly close-knit community.
Usually the reason, or the excuse, for shutting down a newsletter is either financial or
personal, or lack of interest amongst the potential readers; but that doesn’t seem to apply in
this case, and the argument appearing in the editorial looked to me, to say the least, a bit
peculiar. It went like this: it opened with an outline of the KIG’s numerous activities during
the last 60 years, which are, I have to admit, quite impressive. Next came a report about the
waning impact of the Christian Church across Europe, as a growing number of baptized
believers leave the faith.

And then the crunch: following Pope Benedict’s opening of the Year of Belief, we too consider
ourselves “on a pilgrimage across the deserts of the present world, for which you take along
only essential equipment – no hiking pole, no bag of provisions, no bread, no money and no
second shirt”. And “How can you live, without hoping for miracles? We are quite confident
that the Lord will let grow new life out of bare land and stones”. Go figure!

Here we reach the end of Kaleidoscope #36, a lucky number for the Jews. I want to thank
everyone that have sent us their newsletters and pamphlets, enabling us to cull tidbits for
ours. Thanks to my colleagues, including those who departed and by now read us from up
above. And a special thank you to Anton Marks, with my best wishes for carrying on editing
“C.A.L.L.”. Yalla Bye, Joel Dorkam

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