Barn Raising

I often search for a model that I can apply to solve or help solve the homeless crisis in Oregon.

Ideas come along every now, some drifting on the wind, some flowering from the ground, some via reading, some via conversations.

One emerged a while back. I was walking some old dogs through a dairy farm gone to seed along a degraded river and I found myself standing in front of a dilapidated wooden barn. It was leaning, sagging, growing shrubs and trees inside and on the roof. It was returning to the earth and would never shelter livestock again.

A new model materialized:

I thought about a barn raising, how an entire community would come together to raise a barn for a farmer in single day. It was also a dynamic, free-flowing social event where participants of all ages cooked, ate, drank, talked, laughed, gossiped, sewed, danced, flirted and worked to build a lot more than just a structure for livestock. It really is the ultimate in earthy human collaboration. Everybody gave what they could and the reciprocation in giving was implicit: somewhere down the line, you would need a barn raising for your farm. Or you wouldn’t need a new barn for another hundred years. You helped raise the barn without any expectation of reciprocity. You gave because giving is good and deepens our connection with people.

Then I thought about a human barn raising. Can a community (certainly not limited to geographical proximity) come together and raise a new barn out of a homeless human being who needs help in rising up? I mean, built solid, built to last, built in one day, in reality or metaphor. One day! And could the barn raising become an enriching social event as well?

I want to become a barn raiser in whatever community I belong to or try to establish. For homeless people an others in need. I want to help raise human barns everywhere around me. Not too many years ago, my family and people I barely knew helped raise me up as a human barn when there was practically nothing there, not even a foundation. The raisers showed up with food, books, beer, coffee, conversation, tarot cards, love, seeds, tools, jobs, metaphysical magic, medicine and dogs.

Remember that great Amish barn raising scene in the movie Witness, starring Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis? Watch it again, over and over. There's definitely something in there we can use.