Choosing Other Ways to Live

COWL |

Choosing
Other
Ways to
Live

A movement for communal imagination and reconciled living

COWL helps young adults discover, discern, and develop more reconciled ways of living, drawing on the wisdom of monastic and intentional Christian communities.

We believe that monastic and intentional communities have wisdom to offer a world experiencing profound fragmentation. Such communities have long experimented with ways of cultivating:

belonging rather than isolation
prayer rather than distraction
shared life rather than radical individualism
rootedness rather than disconnection
hospitality rather than fear
reconciliation rather than division

We want to help a new generation discover these ways of living, discern what they are being called toward, and develop reconciled ways of living.

Choosing

We have agency in how we live.
Choosing how to live does not have to be a solitary decision. COWL draws on Quaker practices of communal discernment, creating spaces where people listen deeply, reflect together, and attend to what is emerging.

We make room for questions rather than rushing toward answers.

Other

What if we could live otherwise?
Other than anxious.
Other than isolated.
Other than endlessly busy.
Other than disconnected from the people and places around us.
Other than simply accepting that the way things are is the way things have to be.

COWL invites us to encounter communities that have chosen different patterns of life — and to ask what their wisdom might have to teach us.

Ways to

A good life is shaped by practices.
Monastic and intentional Christian communities offer centuries of wisdom about prayer, hospitality, community, work, rest, relationships, stewardship, and shared life.

COWL helps us encounter these practices and explore how they might speak to our lives today.

Live

We learn by practicing.
COWL is not simply about discussing alternative ways of living. It is about trying them.
Practicing silence. Sharing meals. Paying attention. Building relationships. Creating rhythms of prayer and rest. Learning to listen. Visiting communities. Discerning together.

Because ways of living are discovered not only through ideas, but through experience.

COWL creates spaces where people can slow down, pay attention, ask deeper questions, and explore what it might mean to live with greater intention — in relationship with God, self, others, and the land.

COWL is a place to…

Discern.

COWL creates spacious environments for people to listen — to themselves, to one another, to tradition, to the world around them, and, for those who are seeking God, to the movement of the Spirit.

Our gatherings draw on Quaker practices of communal discernment and monastic practices of shared reflection.

There is space for silence. Space for questions. Space to share. Space simply to listen. And space to wonder:

What might I be called toward?

Rather than giving advice, we practice offering one another attentive, holding, listening.

Discover.

COWL creates opportunities to encounter other ways of living.

Through conversations with monastic and intentional Christian communities, community visits, retreats, stories, practices, and shared experiences, we invite young adults to discover forms of life they may never have encountered before.

Come and discover:

Ancient wisdom for contemporary life.
Practices that create space for God.
Communities built around shared life and belonging.
Rhythms that make room for prayer, work, rest, and relationship.
People who are experimenting with other ways to live.

Sometimes we discover what we are called toward by encountering someone already living it.

COWL offers on-ramps to more communal, flourishing ways of living — creating accessible opportunities to encounter communities, ask questions, try new practices, and notice what resonates.

Develop.

Discovering another way of living is only the beginning.

COWL provides frameworks, practices, relationships, and opportunities for young adults to develop the capacities needed to live more intentionally and relationally.

Through the 4 Rs of Reconciled Living and the 12 Habits of Reconcilers, we explore how inner formation and outward ways of living belong together.

COWL is therefore not simply about finding a community to join. It is about developing the practices, postures, and relationships that help us become people capable of deeper communal life.

Through reflection, experimentation, communal wisdom, and practice, we seek to move from:

discerning → discovering → developing → living.

What we discover gives us possibilities to discern.
What we discern invites us into practice.
And what we practice can gradually become a way of life.

Why COWL?

Many of us are asking questions about how to live well in a fragmented world.

Are there other – more life-giving, more reconciled – ways to live?

For centuries, monastic and intentional Christian communities have experimented with this question. They have developed shared rhythms of prayer, practices of hospitality, communal discernment, rooted traditions, and ways of sharing life that offer a different vision of what Christian living can look like.

COWL creates on-ramps into that wisdom.

Through gatherings, conversations, community visits, retreats, and mentoring, we help young adults encounter people who are already practicing other ways of living — and discern what they might learn, adapt, or explore for themselves.

COWL is not about telling you what your life should look like.

It is about creating space to discover, discern and develop what kind of life you are being called toward.

Reconciliation

At the heart of COWL is a simple reconciliation framework for exploring how we live.

The 4 Rs of Reconciled Living

Rituals

What practices ground us?

Rituals are the intentional practices that help us return to what matters — prayer, silence, reflection, shared meals, Scripture, contemplation, and other practices that ground individual and communal life.

Relationships

How do we learn to live with one another?

Relationships are the practices and postures that cultivate life-giving and growing connection and belonging.

Rhythms

What patterns shape our lives?

Individual practices become patterns, and patterns become ways of life. Rhythms help us consider how we structure our days, weeks, seasons, work, rest, worship, and communal life.

Rootedness

What holds us?

We are shaped by traditions, stories, communities, places, and practices. Rootedness asks what we have inherited, what gives us life, and what wisdom might help us become more deeply grounded.

Together, the 4 Rs offer a way to reflect on how we are living now and imagine how we might live differently.

COWL explores the 4 Rs of Reconciled Living alongside Rose Castle Foundation’s 12 Habits of Reconcilers:

The 12 Habits of Reconcilers

Hospitality · Curiosity · Generosity · Empathy · Vulnerability · Humility · Lament · Forgiveness · Gratitude · Hope · Stewardship · Creativity

Each habit opens up a different question about what it means to live well with God, ourselves, one another, and the world around us.

COWL asks – what would it look like to make these habits part of the fabric of everyday life?

COWL Programming

COWL at Earlham

COWL is currently being piloted through a weekly campus society at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana.

We meet for 90 minutes each week to explore one of the 4 Rs, through the lens of one of the 12 Habits.

Gatherings include:
– simple spiritual practices
– reflection and conversation
– stories from monastic and intentional communities
– opportunities for communal discernment
– imaginative exploration of other ways of living

Four dimensions. Twelve habits. A community of people asking deeper questions together.

Photo by Gianluigi Bergamo on Pexels.com

COWL Conferences

Meet people who are living differently.

Each month, COWL hosts an online conversation with someone involved in a monastic, new monastic, or intentional Christian community.

These conversations offer a window into communities that are experimenting with different ways of living — and an opportunity to ask questions directly to people who are doing it.

Photo by Justyn Abacajan on Pexels.com

COWL Encounters

Sometimes you have to experience other ways to live before you can imagine them.

COWL helps young adults discover opportunities to visit monastic and intentional Christian communities, whether for a retreat, short stay, pilgrimage, or longer period of discernment.

These experiences are not about conversion, but about enabling opportunities to discover, discern and develop.

Young adults are encouraged to reflect on their community encounters through the lens of the 4Rs and 12 Habits.

Photo by Kaveh Keshtiara on Pexels.com

COWL Mentorship

For some people, curiosity becomes a serious question: could I actually live this way?

COWL is developing connections between young adults exploring intentional community, contemplative life, and alternative forms of Christian living and practitioners who have experience inhabiting these ways of life.

Mentorship provides a relationship in which questions can become more concrete, and discernment can become more grounded.

Choosing Other Ways to Live

Contact Us | cowl.movement@gmail.com

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