Over breakfast this morning I was speaking with a friend about forming a communal village. The plan, at least in theory, would be to locate such a community in an area on the outskirts of civilization. The idea is nothing too serious yet, just a dreaming about possibilities. At least for me. My friend is actually pretty serious about forming such a community. He's already exploring potential property in southern Oregon. And, on top of that, he's already been to visit some existing intentional, outskirt communities located in California and Nevada.

While my wife, Serena, and I have only just begun talking about such a concept, it's actually been on the periphery of my radar for about a decade now. So what's the draw? Well, a chief one for me is the desire to be intentionally counter-consumeristic. You see, buying and consuming less - while a great start - is not the only way one can choose to move away from the consumerist fog we're all immersed in here in the West. Another way to accomplish this is to consciously move against what you might call "market trends".

One such market trend revolves around real estate. You know the expression, "location, location, location". One can do much to counteract trends in real estate by merely choosing not to follow the herd into the latest hip location. Now such counter-cultural moves are not always possible. People do have to make a living. People do have families to raise. In our case however, because my wife and I derive our income from various online businesses we run from home, we don't have to live in any particular place. In other words, our geo-location is not tied to our present vocation. So, for us, more so than for most people I suppose, our location is completely flexible.

Currently, we reside in the glorious region known as Central Oregon. We, like many others from the neighboring states of Washington, Idaho, and especially California, chose to move here because the area is ideal for those drawn to nature; and to a plethora of outdoor recreational pursuits. Here you can mountain-bike, ski and snowboard, swim and river-raft down the Deschutes River, etc. And with over 300 days of sunshine a year, Central Oregon lets you "play outside" an awful lot more than many other places. True, the winters are a little cold and perhaps a tad long, but that's a small price to pay for such year round attractiveness.

Now, with all that said, because this area has been the focus of a strong marketing campaign for some time now, it has seen a rapid influx of population over the last several years. And of course, this has created a situation in which real estate values have sky-rocketed. Three to four years ago you could have bought the house we currently live in for about $120,000. Today it's worth about $275,000. When you crunch the numbers, percentage-wise, that's a pretty crazy increase. We bought in near the height of the real estate bubble that burst sometime last summer- so we haven't seen that increase in the value of our own equity. But while many other locations around the U.S. have seen real estate values decrease, in Central Oregon, because there is still a strong influx of people moving in, values have stayed about where they were a year ago.

Now, in the back of my mind I know that there are places in the Midwest where we could buy this same house for $100,000 less than we could get for the one we live in here. I don't get excited about that because we could make such a wondrous profit, but more because I know we could then live on so much less. And this, of course, would free up a lot of time and energy to spend on other worthwhile pursuits.

Now, no offense to people in the Midwest, but I don't particularly want to live there. However, even here in Oregon, there are places we could move to, in a counter move to the consumer-driver real estate market trend, where we could buy, or build, the same house for about $50- 100,000 less than our current home costs us. Shave $1000 dollars a month off of a mortgage and you suddenly have a lot of room to pursue other Kingdom-central pursuits. And from my perspective, you don't necessarily even have to trade away natural beauty to do this. All you really have to trade up is infrastructure. You'd have to locate yourself outside of a city center in order to see a real difference in property prices. You'd have to create your own infrastructure, hopefully with organic goals and a sustainable model.

Now, because my wife and I believe in community, the goal would not then be to live in isolation, in the middle of the woods. No, the idea would be to go, along with a group of others, with the hopes of living an intentional, counter-cultural, community-centric lifestyle, where freedom was created by moving against the consumer trends of the surrounding society.

This friend of mine that I mentioned at the outset of this article pictures such a community also being a potential refuge for those needing a temporary reprieve from the hectic nature of city life. He also imagines it being a place where people could come to heal from sickness, or even, to die- peacefully, surrounded by loving community and a tranquil setting. I also imagine it being a place where one could re-locate those in poverty, who lack not only economic means, but also the history of a loving, encouraging, creative environment in which to learn what it means to live. And I suspect those of us who were priviledged with such an upbringing would be mutually blessed by being able to see and meet Jesus in these honored members of the community.