Eye-Opening Lessons from Living In a Quaker Intentional Community

“Our mission at Beacon Hill Friends House,” executive director Jennifer Newman explains, “is to embody the Quaker values… in order to nurture and call forth the Light in all of us.” Hosting the local Quaker meeting is part of that agenda, but Beacon Hill’s main purpose is as a space where Friends and other spiritual seekers can live in intentional community.

For more than half a century, Beacon Hill’s residents have found great meaning in exploring Quaker values together. “I’m more willing to face the hard truths and have the hard conversations,” says Vickie Wu. “I feel like it’s made me kinder and more centered in my feelings and a better listener… just generally the kind of person I want to be in the world.”

Brent Walsh echoes that sentiment, describing Beacon Hill as a place where residents can arrive “in their lowest moments of need and isolation [and] find a community that helps them push through those layers of dirt and reach for the sky, and become someone they didn’t even know existed.”

Have you ever thought about living in an intentional community like Beacon Hill Friends House? What would you hope to gain from that experience? Do you think there’s still an opportunity to do it? Share your thoughts in our comments section… or just reply to this email!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Maximum of 400 words or 2000 characters.

Comments on Friendsjournal.org may be used in the Forum of the print magazine and may be edited for length and clarity.