A rescheduled quasi-confirmed interview that has yet to materialize has kept me from getting real work done this afternoon. Well, billable work. I have been reading A Generious Orthodoxy by Brian McLaren (Amazon has an understandably hard time with his ridiculously long subtitle), in between checking my computer for updates, reading random articles about the new U2 album, and noticing that everyone in my blogging circle is posting an entry about the new U2 iPod video. (me, Steve, Josh, Neal. C’mon who’s next? Tim? Andrew? Speak? Maybe Church Marketing Sucks could find a way to talk about it.)

McLaren makes an intriguing point in his chapter “Why I Am Green” (which sadly does not contain the line “It’s not easy being green”) about the family (and yes, I am getting to a real point in this entry. For the record, I’d like to blame the preposterous number of parenthetical thoughts in this entry on McLaren, who has 148 footnotes in a 300-page book, most of which are side comments and not technically footnotes. I’d hate to count how many parenthetical thoughts he has.):

“Even our family systems will need reconsideration. For example, we may realize that the nuclear family (of so much Christian focus) and “subatomic family” (i.e., the nuclear family further split by divorce) both require (and waste) more resources than the traditional family — the extended or “molecular” one. Could extended families and intentional households ever make a comeback? If they do, it will be good news for all of creation — including humans.”

See what I mean? Three parenthetical thoughts in one sentence. And this guy has a degree in English. There’s hope for us all.

But I had a point: Molecular familes.

It’s the extended families you hear about from the “old days,” when the traditional nuclear family unit was complimented with grandparents and aunts & uncles and cousins. The entire conglomerate would live in one household (they had a lot less stuff, so they all fit) and would divide the labor and spoils. It was a team effort, and as a consequence it was easier to get by. As McLaren points out, they also left a smaller footprint on the surrounding land.

In essence, it’s a form of communal living that’s always fascinated me. Not that I have any desire to move back in with my parents or my in-laws (we can all breathe a collective shudder). But having run my own household for the past three and a half years, I can see and appreciate the advantages to throwing in your lot with some other folks. And trying to survive with your family is probably easier than a bunch of strangers (as much as your family drives you nuts, you’re bound to love them, not like them, making it more likely that you won’t kill them).

My heating bill will soar to nearly $300/month this winter. I imagine the surrounding houses have a similiar problem. What if we threw our lot in together, some sort of communal housing unit, where the heat could be shared? The few of us who are home during the day (which is at least my elderly neighbor and I) could congregate in the few adequately heated rooms during the day while the rest of the rest of the house remains empty and cold. Why should both my neighbor and I moderately heat our empty houses alone when we could do it together (or as I usually do, not heat my house during the day and just wear a jacket. What did I say the other day about being a miserly writer?).

It seems like Ecclesiastes has something to say about this:

“Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone?” (4:9-11 NIV)

As I look around my enormous house (which is a relatively puny 1,100 square feet), it feels incredibly wasteful to live like this. My wife and I own a library of 1,200+ books, most of which will go unread in a given year. The waste isn’t in how much we spent on them (at used prices and gifts, they’re pretty cheap, though still $1 each is a wad o’ cash), but in their uselessness. Certainly they’re useful to me as a freelance writer working out of the home. I love going into the next room and pulling a book off the shelf to look up a quote or favorite passage. But that’s it. So many other people could be reading those books, and when friends ask I try to make them available as much as possible.

I’m just saddened by what a consumerist society we are. We have to have it all for ourselves, and I’m not immune. I certainly do better than others, managing to share a car with my wife. But I still fail miserably, as I’m not able to share my books (in the sense that I must have my own, I can’t make due with the St. Paul Library), I’m not able to share my computer (being limited to a single workable computer in my household only lasted a few mere months), and I shudder at the thought of having to share my iPod.

I yearn to find a way to share again. I doubt molecular families are the solution (though they served some purpose in the past, which at times must have been good), but there needs to be some where to go.

Perhaps I should turn back to my shelves and read more Wendell Berry.