"The youngest Shaker in the world is 67 years old, and his name is Arnold," writes Jordan Kisner in the New York Times Magazine. That would be Brother Arnold Hadd, to be precise, who joined the Shaker community at their Sabbathday Lake village in Maine at the age of 21 and hasn't left. The community was thriving at the time, relatively speaking, but today only two members are left: Hadd and Sister June Carpenter, who's 86. Kisner spent nearly two years visiting the community and documenting "one of the longest-running utopian experiments in America." The story explores the roots of the movement in the 18th century, with its tenets of faith, gender and race equality, pacifism, hard work (most people might be more familiar with Shaker furniture than the religion itself), and self-abnegation (members are celibate).
But with only two aging members left, the movement seems destined to peter out. The village now doubles as a museum, and non-Shakers help Hadd tend the farm's 2,000 acres, along with its sheep and cows. The most prominent non-Shaker (though he nearly joined decades ago) involved is Michael Graham, in his 50s, who heads the nonprofit that helps run Sabbathday Lake. Graham would prefer a more proactive approach to gaining new adherents, but Hadd, with whom the decision rests, wouldn't. Hadd has faith, however, that the beliefs of Shakerism will outlive him. "I was given an intuition 30 years ago: The work is going on. You have to hold on, and you have to stay focused, and they will come." (Read the full story.)
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