BOWDOINHAM, MAINE – Proclaimed as “A Very Crafty Town” by DownEast Magazine (Nov. 2008) Bowdoinham is once again showing just how crafty it can be. The Long Branch School of Maine is due to open September 2011 in Bowdoinham. Local residents Peter Feeney, John Favreau and Nanette Giacoma have teamed up to create The Long Branch School where regional experts will teach workshops that promote self-reliance and sustainability. The Long Branch School will operate at 20 Main Street in the village center of Bowdoinham. Long Branch is an L3C - a low profit, limited liability company. This is a new designation for limited liability companies that provide a social benefit from their operations.  

Long Branch offers affordable workshops that provide enrichment and learning in a wide array of skills. Reflecting the diverse gifts of the people in the region, course offerings will range from farming, energy efficiency and food preservation to woodworking, utilitarian arts and crafts, and music. Nestled on the Cathance River near Merrymeeting Bay, Bowdoinham is the perfect setting for a school that takes advantage of the beautiful, natural surroundings and will provide a venue for fun and adventure.

The General Store will be open daily and boast an eclectic blend of locally grown produce, milk, bread and eggs, as well as, Maine made products, utilitarian arts, crafts and gifts. It will be a provide a healthy option for those quick pick-up items frequently needed, as well as, support the creative economy in the region. Located on Main Street, a frequently traveled road to I-295 and Route 24, it will be a charming, convenient one-stop shopping experience.

The Long Branch School of Maine Mission is to:
• provide people with skills they need to live sustainably
• rekindle the skills and lifestyles of our heritage in a socially and environmentally responsible manner
• provide people a unique and fulfilling experience that builds community and re-localizes our economy
• incubate and grow businesses that support a local, sustainable economy

The Grand Opening will be on Saturday, September 10th as a part of the annual Celebrate Bowdoinham festivities.

In his new book Beautiful and Abundant: Building the World We Want, Bryan Welch challenges us to quit moaning and groaning about the environment, economic predation and a host of other uglies and instead take a proactive role in creating a future worth living. Welch's fundamental premise is that humans are smart enough to figure out how to make something happen, but when it comes to the future of the earth, and our species, we can't seem to get past just pointing out the problems and pointing the finger at those perceived to be at fault. Finger pointing and special-interest-agenda grinding will most definitely prevent any future world concept that's fair, beautiful and abundant or worth living.  

Vegetarians blaming beef producers and Prius drivers blaming Hummer afficionados for using up all the natural resources and causing all the pollution, or political pundits pretending there's no end to oil and that global climate change is just some pork-providing hoax, simply skirt and divert attention from the real issues.  Adjusting our consumerism to include guilt-salving environmental bandaid purchases like compact fluorescent lightbulbs doesn't make much of a long-term impact either. As with life in general, there is no environmental magic bullet that will keep our way of life going without us first carefully defining where we want to be and agreeing on a path to getting there.

Nope, a future worth living is not going to be conveniently purchased with a certifying body's stamp of approval, it's not going to wear some political party's slogan, it will challenge cultures, religions and traditional ways of thinking. Building the world we want is going to take honest engagement, cooperation among groups that have not historically cooperated, and untold lifetimes of dedicated work. Building a future that appeals to a common human vision won't likely be televised, but it may well be continuously streamed.

Don't get me wrong, I believe that creating a beautiful and abundant future is entirely within the human realm. As Welch eloquently points out in his book, humans visualized being able to fly for about as long as history has been recorded. The big breakthrough occurred in 1903 and look at us today. If we can visualize it, we can make it happen. So let us start visualizing how a naturally beautiful and economically abundant earth might look because it will likely take a while to get there.

One of the most compelling lessons for me in Beautiful and Abundant: Building the World We Want is that an amazing amount of human effort is being currently squandered in the battle over special-interest slices of the environmental issue. What a waste. Imagine where we'd be if that energy was aimed at a desirable outcome with near universal appeal.

If you are dissatisfied with the contentious and derisive wheel-spinning discussions of the present condition and how it relates to the future, I suggest you read a copy of Welch's Beautiful and Abundant. At the very least, you might be moved to think about the world and your place in it. But more than likely you will experience a paradigm shift in thought -- a ureka moment of sorts. It seems so simple: without a vision, our future is completely lost.

For more information on Beautiful and Abundant: Building the World We Want, click here. To order your copy today, click here. 

Last weekend, Sue and I went to a workshop at the Michigan Friends Center near Chelsea, Michigan. It was called Living Lightly, and it fit us because have both been involved with sustainability efforts, and because I have wanted to get out to the Friends Center, having been born in Iowa and raised a Quaker. I’m not much of a singer myself, but one of the features of the day involves singing an old Shaker tune, written by Elder Joseph in 1848, entitled “Simple Gifts.” The lyrics go like this:

“Tis the gift to be simple, ‘tis the gift to be free,
‘tis the gift to come down where you ought to be.
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
It will be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gained,
We shall bow and bend, we shan’t be ashamed.
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come round right.”

The workshop was centered on the idea of sustainability and of the things that individuals can do to help reverse the long held idea that the economy, rather than the environment, is the driving force for society. And it touched on the elusive idea of spiritual life. As many of these things go, there was a keynote address, large group and small group discussions, and we wrote things on big pieces of newsprint that got stuck to the wall for everyone to see. Wisely, the organizers avoided the “facilitated session” trap of having us vote for our favorites. It was more internally focused, letting us come away with what each of us, personally gained from the day.

Like grains of sand forming a beach, a million little things are what will change the world. Nothing really “new” came out of this day, only an affirmation of many little things we already knew that are not only good for the environment, but can be personally satisfying:

• Know where your food comes from by buying it locally or growing it yourself.
• Conserve heating fuel, in the winter close off rooms that aren’t needed.
• Use alternative energies like solar or wind, if at all possible.
• Turn of or unplug things when you aren’t using them.
• Minimize driving and don’t be in such a hurry.
• Instead of buying all the stuff you need, share with neighbors.
• If you focus on what it truly important to you, you can live simply and with satisfaction.

Now wait a minute! Simplicity, share with neighbors, close off unused rooms, use windmills? Is this starting sound familiar? It seems to me that this is how my family used to live when we weren’t expecting to have more and more every year. I know it’s how my grandma and grandpa lived, and how Sue’s mom, Bee, lives to this day. Many of the things in the list epitomize the country life, the community life that we have lost as things started turning faster and faster, and we started borrowing beyond our needs to have what we thought was the next best thing. It sounds a lot like the Quaker principles that sustain me even to this day, even though I have drifted away from the church itself.

The recent financial meltdown has forced many of us to re-evaluate, to turn back to knowledge we have buried for some time. We knew we had lost something, but perhaps we are finally realizing what it is we need to turn back to. Perhaps we are rediscovering what a gift it is to be simple, to be free. And could it be that by turning, turning, we will finally come round right?