The Community of the Ark: A Visit with Lanza del Vasto, His Fellow Disciples of Mahatma Gandhi, and Their Utopian Community in France (20th Anniversary Edition)

By Mark Shepard

France's Community of the Ark is one of the past century's most successful experiments in utopian living. Founded by Lanza del Vasto, a Christian disciple of Mahatma Gandhi, it offers an inspiring model for a nonviolent society. Mark Shepard shared the life of this remarkable community for six weeks in 1979 and reported on what he found.
 
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Mark Shepard is the author of "Mahatma Gandhi and His Myths," "The Community of the Ark," and "Gandhi Today," called by the American Library Association's Booklist "a masterpiece of committed reporting." His writings on social alternatives have appeared in over 30 publications in the United States, Canada, England, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Japan, and India.
 
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"A joy to read." -- Ray Olson, American Library Association Booklist, Sept. 1, 1989
 
"Will be welcomed by many. . . . Highly informative and full of little-known information." -- Harmony, Sept.-Oct 1989
 
"Shepard is able to transform the community and its members from mere images or abstractions into real individuals with both their [virtues] and their defects. Anyone interested in the history of contemporary communities will profit from Shepard's keen observations." -- Andre J. M. Prevos, Utopian Studies
 
"Shepard makes the community come alive." -- PRC Newsletter, Spring 1990
 
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SAMPLE
 
Palm Sunday.
 
The bell in the tower tolls, first weakly, but quickly building up strength to a full-bodied tone -- then stops abruptly.
 
When I reach the courtyard of the main building, there are already people there, talking in small groups -- people from La Borie Noble, from the Ark's other villages, and guests from the local area; others are still on their way on the paths from La Flayssiere and Nogaret.
 
The people of the Ark wear their festival clothes, handmade all from white wool: the men with their heavy sweaters and pants, the women with their long dresses, and many of both with hooded cloaks down to their feet. The children rush around among the adults, then after a while pass out boughs for the adults to hold. The sun shines brightly, though the air hanging between the tree-covered mountain slopes is still icy-cold.
 
Now all gather in a circle, each one holding a bough. Soon the singing begins: a hundred voices raised in stately, full harmonies.
 
   Hallelujah!
   Glory to God in the highest heaven
   And peace on earth to men of good will.
 
In the music, in the entire scene, the ancient and the modern seem to blend, giving a sense of timelessness. It is as if this could take place anywhere, in any time -- while it is surprising to find it at all.
 
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simple Productions
• Release date: Apr 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9781620352366

Book preview

THE COMMUNITY OF THE ARK

A Visit with Lanza del Vasto, His Fellow Disciples of Mahatma Gandhi, and Their Utopian Community in France

Mark Shepard

Simple Productions

Friday Harbor, Washington

Copyright © 1990, 2012 by Mark Shepard

Ebook Version 3.2.1

Mark Shepard’s writings on social alternatives have appeared in over thirty publications in the United States, Canada, England, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Japan, and India. The American Library Association Booklist called his book Gandhi Today a masterpiece of committed reporting.

Books by Mark

Mahatma Gandhi and His Myths ~ Gandhi Today ~ The Community of the Ark ~ Simple Sourdough

For more resources, visit

Mark Shepard’s Peace Page at

www.markshep.com/‌peace

We are accused of going against the times. We are doing that deliberately and with all our strength.

The machine enslaves, the hand sets free.

Lanza del Vasto

Tucked away in the windswept mountains of southern France is an island of peace known as the Community of the Ark.

This remarkable community — in its fifth decade at the time of my visit, and numbering well over one hundred residents — is one of the past century’s most successful experiments in utopian living. Founded by Lanza del Vasto, a Christian disciple of Mahatma Gandhi, it offers an inspiring model for a nonviolent society.

I visited the Ark in 1979, sharing the life of the community for six weeks. This is the record of what I found.

Preceding page: Main building, La Borie Noble

The two-car electric train wound around the slopes of tree-covered mountains, and paused only briefly at the tiny station of Les Cabrils, a village of several houses. The station had already closed, and no one was there to meet me. The sun was on its way down; and, though this was mid-March in what I had imagined was sunny southern France, the weather was icy cold.

Then I noticed a sign — La Communauté de l’Arche — pointing down the road. I started off quickly.

The road led along one slope of a steep, narrow valley. In about ten minutes, a building came into view, farther ahead on the opposite slope. Three stories, L-shaped, with a tower where the building’s two wings met. Was that the Ark? Drawing nearer, I saw more buildings behind the first. Then a long strip of garden in the valley below the buildings.

The road took me down into the valley and up the other slope, to the foot of a stone staircase rising to the buildings above. As I reached the top steps, two women in long skirts were rushing by. I called out to them in my best brushed-up high school French, asking them to bring me to Nicole, the woman I had been told to contact. Pausing only long enough to puzzle out my French, they hurried me off with them to the big building I had seen first from the road.

Up some stone steps on the outside, through a kitchen, down a hall, through a massive wooden door, and — pandemonium! Seventy people of all ages, milling around, talking, laughing. Women wearing blouses, sweaters, ankle-length skirts. Men in trousers, woolen sweaters, and vests. Strung from the necks of many, a wooden medallion: a cross with a quarter circle on each point, facing outward. Children raced among the legs of the adults.

I