So how did it work living in a United Order?
Well, first of all, my father gave me a couple of responsibilities.
I must say about my dad, he had your typical A-type personality. He was a very charismatic, driven person. But much to his credit, he was always self-effacing. People were always trying to thrust him into positions of leadership. There were even a couple of people who tried to make him their “prophet”. But my father always resisted such notions. When we moved out into the wilderness of Arizona, we made a conscious decision not to govern ourselves by the “one-man rule”, but by common consent and council.
My father, given his innate sense of leadership and priesthood calling – not to mention his position of family patriarch - could have easily asserted himself as “bishop” of our United Order, the agent in charge of collecting the consecrations. He would have naturally fit that role. But my father was afraid of the power that this role would give him in our family. He was more afraid that other people would perceive that everyone would view it that he was “taking everyone’s money”. Ironically, many people still said that about him.
So he appointed someone to act as a sort of treasurer for our Order. That person was me. I was supposed to occupy this office for a year, after which the position would rotate to someone else.
I was mortified to have this position. So you create a United Order, and the person you pick to run it… is a spendthrift. I had never been good with money. I’m still not. Even though I have made a living doing accounting and handling other people’s money with success and care, when it comes to my own money, I suck. My wives are better at budgeting that I am.
I went to my father privately and expressed my objections.
“I think it will provide you with an opportunity to learn something,” my dad told me. “You’ll be able to become strong in an area where you are weak.”
The next thing – I am a people pleaser. It is a challenge to have someone who is a people pleaser in a position like that, because I do not like to say no. People would come to me for money for certain needs, and invariably I would say yes. Even if the funds were not available.
After a year of handling everyone’s money very poorly, I gladly handed the reins of the office of “treasurer” back to my dad. And he handed them right back to me. I acted in the capacity of treasurer for nine years. (And I don’t think I ever got better at it.)
“I don’t think you’ve learned what you need to yet,” my father said.
The way we would work things – we would get paid weekly, and every pay day (before we had a chance to spend our money) we would all come together for a meeting we simply called “Financial Meeting”. Present were all the wives and all the husbands. Everyone would have an equal voice.
The main thing accomplished at Financial Meeting was to place all of the earned wages into the “pot” and then to disperse them according to everyone’s needs. This means specifically that my pay check went every week to the extended family. At this meeting, everyone was supposed to bring their bills to the table, we were supposed to review them, and the funds were supposed to be redistributed according to those needs, and according to the priority.
And this worked most of the time except for two different kinds of personalities. First of all, you had people pleasers, like me, who thoughtlessly gave all of their income and bit back their own needs for the sake of others. At each meeting, I would watch the sum grow smaller and smaller as more and more needs were brought up. My heart would sink, and I would think, “I guess I can try and pay that bill next week.”
The consequence is – I am still trying to pay off bills that I put off back then. This is no one’s fault but my own. I can’t blame anyone nor can I blame United Order. I should have spoken up. One thing I learned from all of that was that no one can benefit anyone if they are in debt. And it was not fair to my children that ignored my own debt.
On the other hand, there were people like my former sister-in-law Sarine. If people like me bit back their needs, Sarine was always needy. Having grown up in a family that lived off of the dole in the Allred Group, she had no concept of self-sacrifice. There were several occasions when my father would say to her, “Sarine, your needs exceed the amount of money we have brought in this week. If we meet all of your needs, there won’t be anything left for anyone else.”
And she would blink with incomprehension.
For almost four years, Martha and I shared a trailer with Sarine and her husband. At one Financial Meeting, Sarine actually brought up that it was not fair that Martha and I kept our bedroom door open during the winter, because the heat was going into our room and thereby not giving her enough heat. My dad answered, “They have just as much right to the heat as you do.”
When we moved out into our own place, Sarine made constant upgrades (threatening to leave if she did not get them.) In a system where we were all supposed to be equal, Sarine had a washer and drier. (The rest of us went to the laundromat once a week.) Sarine had a water heater. (The rest of us heated water on the stove.) Sarine had water pressure. (The rest of us hauled water.) Sarine had solar power. (The rest of us used candles at night.) It was the quintessential case of the squeaky wheel.
But this is an inevitable fact about a communistic lifestyle. There will always be idealists who will believe and try to make it work. And then there will be parasites who will take advantage of the hard work and sacrifice of others.
The Financial Meeting was a place where other issues were brought up. For instance, it was in this way that we eventually arranged for all of us to have septic tanks. (After one year, no more buckets.) I brought up in a previous post the relevance of personal property in the United Order. When I married Temple, she brought her personal belongings with her. She owned a llama. She had owned this llama long before she met me, and when we got married, she brought her llama and we put him in a pen we built on our property.
Now, what does a llama do? I asked this question of many people before. A llama eats. That is the answer. A llama eats. So we had a weekly expense of purchasing hay. There were some in our Order who complained about this expense and insisted that we sell the llama, get rid of it and thereby rid ourselves of what they deemed as a luxury.
And I always insisted that the Order had no right to make that decision for Temple. It was her personal property, and the Order had no right to step over that boundary and make that decision for her. I agreed to take care of that expense myself, but I would allow no one to make that decision for us. My father always did joke with Temple that, if times got lean, we would eat the llama. Temple always sensed that this was a half-joke.
When we first moved out to the Land, my dad wanted a set of rules made. He wanted to pattern this set of rules after the Orderville Charter. He assigned my oldest brother to create this set of rules. Each week, my father would ask my brother how this was progressing, and each week my brother would say that he had not got around to it yet. My brother admitted to me later that he was reluctant to create a set of rules that would be too binding. I was very grateful for this.
One rule that did my dad did create, though, was the “No TV” rule. A man my dad respected once told him that TV would ultimately destroy a United Order. The story of my dad hearing this would grow and grow with each telling to the point that my dad decided that no one would have a TV on the Land. We all made an agreement about it. I never agreed with the decision, but I made it because I respected my dad. And since we had no power, I didn’t think it would matter anyway.
I have since gone back on that agreement years ago. The way I look at it – no man should tell another man what he can or can’t do in his own home. I love my dad, but in this instance I think he was wrong. Maybe God will hold me accountable for making an agreement and then going back on it. But there is nothing to fear about technology. We are not Amish. A TV itself is not good or evil. It is how we use it.
I am not saying that it was all bad in our United Order. There was much that was good. For one thing, we all ate together.
Each Financial Meeting, someone was assigned to do the grocery shopping for the whole Order. That person would go out each week and but the food for everyone. Sometimes, it was slim. You would work all week, and then someone would bring you back only a few bags of groceries.
But then we would all eat dinner together. The women would divide up cooking days between themselves. For instance, you would not have to cook for most of the week. But once or twice a week, you would have to cook for everyone. It worked out pretty good, and everyone ate well. (Except for the nights that Sarine would cook. On her nights she only ever made lentil soup. Yuck.)
We would all meet at my father’s house and eat. Since we had no TV, we would sit around and talk. I look back at those times as some of the best of my life. As the years go by, I wish that I could go back to that time of my life. Everything was simple then, and we were all united.
But there were complaints about some of the women not helping with the dishes after dinner. So the decision was made that we would still cook dinner for each other, but everyone would eat at their own homes.
When I was courting Temple, she came and visited for a couple of weeks while we were all still eating together. By the time we got married and she moved in, the Order was eating dinner in their own homes. Temple told me that she could feel the difference. We were less united.
For a while, we still cooked dinners together. There were even other families who moved into the area that participated in this for a couple of years. But this went by the wayside as well, eventually.
In fact, in my mind, the ending of the meals marked the decline of our United Order. But I will talk about that in the next installment.
Well, first of all, my father gave me a couple of responsibilities.
I must say about my dad, he had your typical A-type personality. He was a very charismatic, driven person. But much to his credit, he was always self-effacing. People were always trying to thrust him into positions of leadership. There were even a couple of people who tried to make him their “prophet”. But my father always resisted such notions. When we moved out into the wilderness of Arizona, we made a conscious decision not to govern ourselves by the “one-man rule”, but by common consent and council.
My father, given his innate sense of leadership and priesthood calling – not to mention his position of family patriarch - could have easily asserted himself as “bishop” of our United Order, the agent in charge of collecting the consecrations. He would have naturally fit that role. But my father was afraid of the power that this role would give him in our family. He was more afraid that other people would perceive that everyone would view it that he was “taking everyone’s money”. Ironically, many people still said that about him.
So he appointed someone to act as a sort of treasurer for our Order. That person was me. I was supposed to occupy this office for a year, after which the position would rotate to someone else.
I was mortified to have this position. So you create a United Order, and the person you pick to run it… is a spendthrift. I had never been good with money. I’m still not. Even though I have made a living doing accounting and handling other people’s money with success and care, when it comes to my own money, I suck. My wives are better at budgeting that I am.
I went to my father privately and expressed my objections.
“I think it will provide you with an opportunity to learn something,” my dad told me. “You’ll be able to become strong in an area where you are weak.”
The next thing – I am a people pleaser. It is a challenge to have someone who is a people pleaser in a position like that, because I do not like to say no. People would come to me for money for certain needs, and invariably I would say yes. Even if the funds were not available.
After a year of handling everyone’s money very poorly, I gladly handed the reins of the office of “treasurer” back to my dad. And he handed them right back to me. I acted in the capacity of treasurer for nine years. (And I don’t think I ever got better at it.)
“I don’t think you’ve learned what you need to yet,” my father said.
The way we would work things – we would get paid weekly, and every pay day (before we had a chance to spend our money) we would all come together for a meeting we simply called “Financial Meeting”. Present were all the wives and all the husbands. Everyone would have an equal voice.
The main thing accomplished at Financial Meeting was to place all of the earned wages into the “pot” and then to disperse them according to everyone’s needs. This means specifically that my pay check went every week to the extended family. At this meeting, everyone was supposed to bring their bills to the table, we were supposed to review them, and the funds were supposed to be redistributed according to those needs, and according to the priority.
And this worked most of the time except for two different kinds of personalities. First of all, you had people pleasers, like me, who thoughtlessly gave all of their income and bit back their own needs for the sake of others. At each meeting, I would watch the sum grow smaller and smaller as more and more needs were brought up. My heart would sink, and I would think, “I guess I can try and pay that bill next week.”
The consequence is – I am still trying to pay off bills that I put off back then. This is no one’s fault but my own. I can’t blame anyone nor can I blame United Order. I should have spoken up. One thing I learned from all of that was that no one can benefit anyone if they are in debt. And it was not fair to my children that ignored my own debt.
On the other hand, there were people like my former sister-in-law Sarine. If people like me bit back their needs, Sarine was always needy. Having grown up in a family that lived off of the dole in the Allred Group, she had no concept of self-sacrifice. There were several occasions when my father would say to her, “Sarine, your needs exceed the amount of money we have brought in this week. If we meet all of your needs, there won’t be anything left for anyone else.”
And she would blink with incomprehension.
For almost four years, Martha and I shared a trailer with Sarine and her husband. At one Financial Meeting, Sarine actually brought up that it was not fair that Martha and I kept our bedroom door open during the winter, because the heat was going into our room and thereby not giving her enough heat. My dad answered, “They have just as much right to the heat as you do.”
When we moved out into our own place, Sarine made constant upgrades (threatening to leave if she did not get them.) In a system where we were all supposed to be equal, Sarine had a washer and drier. (The rest of us went to the laundromat once a week.) Sarine had a water heater. (The rest of us heated water on the stove.) Sarine had water pressure. (The rest of us hauled water.) Sarine had solar power. (The rest of us used candles at night.) It was the quintessential case of the squeaky wheel.
But this is an inevitable fact about a communistic lifestyle. There will always be idealists who will believe and try to make it work. And then there will be parasites who will take advantage of the hard work and sacrifice of others.
The Financial Meeting was a place where other issues were brought up. For instance, it was in this way that we eventually arranged for all of us to have septic tanks. (After one year, no more buckets.) I brought up in a previous post the relevance of personal property in the United Order. When I married Temple, she brought her personal belongings with her. She owned a llama. She had owned this llama long before she met me, and when we got married, she brought her llama and we put him in a pen we built on our property.
Now, what does a llama do? I asked this question of many people before. A llama eats. That is the answer. A llama eats. So we had a weekly expense of purchasing hay. There were some in our Order who complained about this expense and insisted that we sell the llama, get rid of it and thereby rid ourselves of what they deemed as a luxury.
And I always insisted that the Order had no right to make that decision for Temple. It was her personal property, and the Order had no right to step over that boundary and make that decision for her. I agreed to take care of that expense myself, but I would allow no one to make that decision for us. My father always did joke with Temple that, if times got lean, we would eat the llama. Temple always sensed that this was a half-joke.
When we first moved out to the Land, my dad wanted a set of rules made. He wanted to pattern this set of rules after the Orderville Charter. He assigned my oldest brother to create this set of rules. Each week, my father would ask my brother how this was progressing, and each week my brother would say that he had not got around to it yet. My brother admitted to me later that he was reluctant to create a set of rules that would be too binding. I was very grateful for this.
One rule that did my dad did create, though, was the “No TV” rule. A man my dad respected once told him that TV would ultimately destroy a United Order. The story of my dad hearing this would grow and grow with each telling to the point that my dad decided that no one would have a TV on the Land. We all made an agreement about it. I never agreed with the decision, but I made it because I respected my dad. And since we had no power, I didn’t think it would matter anyway.
I have since gone back on that agreement years ago. The way I look at it – no man should tell another man what he can or can’t do in his own home. I love my dad, but in this instance I think he was wrong. Maybe God will hold me accountable for making an agreement and then going back on it. But there is nothing to fear about technology. We are not Amish. A TV itself is not good or evil. It is how we use it.
I am not saying that it was all bad in our United Order. There was much that was good. For one thing, we all ate together.
Each Financial Meeting, someone was assigned to do the grocery shopping for the whole Order. That person would go out each week and but the food for everyone. Sometimes, it was slim. You would work all week, and then someone would bring you back only a few bags of groceries.
But then we would all eat dinner together. The women would divide up cooking days between themselves. For instance, you would not have to cook for most of the week. But once or twice a week, you would have to cook for everyone. It worked out pretty good, and everyone ate well. (Except for the nights that Sarine would cook. On her nights she only ever made lentil soup. Yuck.)
We would all meet at my father’s house and eat. Since we had no TV, we would sit around and talk. I look back at those times as some of the best of my life. As the years go by, I wish that I could go back to that time of my life. Everything was simple then, and we were all united.
But there were complaints about some of the women not helping with the dishes after dinner. So the decision was made that we would still cook dinner for each other, but everyone would eat at their own homes.
When I was courting Temple, she came and visited for a couple of weeks while we were all still eating together. By the time we got married and she moved in, the Order was eating dinner in their own homes. Temple told me that she could feel the difference. We were less united.
For a while, we still cooked dinners together. There were even other families who moved into the area that participated in this for a couple of years. But this went by the wayside as well, eventually.
In fact, in my mind, the ending of the meals marked the decline of our United Order. But I will talk about that in the next installment.
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