Earthships

There was an article/video in the Toronto Star recently about an "earthship" home built in the stark, beautiful landscape near Taos, New Mexico. These pounded or rammed earth homes are designed and created to maintain temperatures across a broad range from hot to cold as part of the earth rather than imposed on the earth. So many home, including most of ours, are built to defy the elements with air-conditioning in summer and furnaces and winter. These are built on an entirely different premise and apparently they work. http://www.thestar.com/videozone/1257352--building-a-home-off-the-grid

Somehow I have seen these houses near Taos, although I never intended to visit them. I was on retreat at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico one January and a group of college students were there at the same time (thankfully not at the retreat house!), using it as a base camp for day trips. At mealtime one of the leader asked if I was interested in going to Taos which is a UN World Heritage Site for the oldest continuously inhabited aboriginal community, the pueblo there. So I tagged along and on our way we passed a colony of these earthship homes.

As the builder in the video suggests, these homes can be built in Canada as well. Randy Bachman of Guess Who fame built one out West and it is impressive.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ra4Pldetd_M  Sure, you say, you can do anything with enough money, and rock stars have the cash. But there are modest urban homes which are energy efficient as well.

As a Christian I'm convinced we are in the process of reinventing ourselves as the church because we simply have to do so. Conventional thinking can sound the death knell for institutions. We are going to have to rethink our relationship with our Earthship planet as well.

What do you think? Could places like these be home? Can we learn to think and create differently?