Against the Wind: Eberhard Arnold and the Bruderhof - Plough

Against the Wind
project and promised cash-strapped students that if they came their fares would
be refunded.
On March 7, 1920, the small company left Fröttstädt at the base of the mountain
and sang their way up the Inselsberg. They were such a motley assortment of
humanity that an outsider would have looked in vain for some common factor:
tolstoyans, 15 communists, Wandervogel, YMCA and SCM members, Free Germans,
representatives from revolutionary and working-class youth groups, to say nothing
of Marie Buchhold, a woman influenced by Buddhism. In fact the only thing that
brought this remarkable group together was Eberhard’s unerring eye for sincere
seekers, “inner” people searching “for freedom and love, inward truthfulness and
vitality.” He was seldom deceived.
The Inselsberg conference focused on exchanging ideas and advice about
pracical steps toward a communal life. Eberhard revealed a vision to this colorful
audience, the vision of an effective community, working with one common spirit
and purpose. His seech appeared somewhat later in Das Neue Werk entitled
“Extended Households and Life in Settlements.” 16 A short extract:
The way to community lies in deepened spirituality and greater intensity of spiritual
experience. The uniting spirit wants to gather all those who in their innermost being
belong together. When people who have an inward kinship are led together in this
manner, this in no way separates them from others…Growing together in communal
life results rather in an increase of strength and vitality. Only living minds and souls
can form a spiritual fellowship that aims at far-reaching effects…Humankind is
meant to be one living entity: a body with one spirit, one head, one soul, one heart.
This makes it clear that Eberhard did not envision a conglomeration of every
possible spiritual trend. Quite to the contrary – an inward affinity was not enough
for him. One spirit, one head, one soul, and one heart. No misunderstanding is
possible. It is pure New Tesament:
Unless the common spirit for which we yearn is the Holy Spirit of the living God, it
will deteriorate into a spirit of commonness –common in the sense of mean and base.
Only the Holy Spirit can stand the test as the uniting power of true community. Only
God can bring about the ultimate unity of voluntary and joyful creativity, of inner
independence, social justice, genuineness in each person’s life, and complete love. The
spirit of God is the power of truth that separates what is bad or only half good from
what is entirely genuine, and the spirit of God is the power of love to make us want
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