Something’s wrong.
A Daoist center for life and wellbeing
Our political and economic systems feel out of control. Our personal lives are stretched thin. We don’t even seem to know how to talk to one another anymore.
If you feel overwhelmed, disconnected, or uncertain how to live well in the midst of it, you’re not imagining the problem—and you’re not alone.
There is a different way to understand what is wrong—and how to live in response: not as isolated individuals fighting for control, but as participants in relationships we help shape.
Kinship Cafe is a free community where we explore this Way of Kinship together, drawing especially on a naturalistic reading of the Daodejing—also known as the Tao Te Ching.
Wisdom is always a dialogue with the past.
THE DAODEJING
An ancient voice in a living conversation
We do not turn to the past because it holds finished answers for the present. We enter into conversation with it because people before us also struggled with how to live well amid conflict, uncertainty, and change.
More than two thousand years ago, a small Chinese text called the Daodejing questioned the pursuit of control, status, certainty, and endless accumulation. In their place, it explored another way of understanding human life and our participation in the larger world.
At Kinship Cafe, we study the text carefully in its historical context and ask what its insights might mean for life today. We call our naturalistic reading of the Daodejing—and the way of living that emerges from it—the Way of Kinship.
The dialogue continues here.
Study the Daodejing
Each week, we move through the text line by line, taking time with its language, historical setting, ambiguities, and competing interpretations.
Members can participate online on Friday mornings or join the same conversation in person on Sunday mornings. Friday sessions are recorded and added to our growing library.
Bring your questions and ideas
Our private community provides a place to share ideas, ask questions, respond to new material, and continue conversations between gatherings.
Wednesday mornings are reserved for an open Community Share. Someone brings a question or idea, and we see where the conversation takes us. These gatherings are interactive and are not recorded.
Explore at your own pace
The Classroom includes recordings of previous Daodejing sessions, a five-part foundation for understanding the text, the 14-Day Exploration of the Way of Kinship, and more.
A LIVING CONVERSATION
Everything inside the Kinship Cafe community is free. Nothing is hidden behind a paywall.
Kinship Cafe is a private community. Requests are reviewed to help protect the quality of the space.
At Kinship Cafe, wisdom is not something one person delivers to everyone else. We learn through careful study, honest questions, different perspectives, lived experience, and relationship.
A place to begin
Begin with the questions.
The 14-Day Exploration offers a guided introduction to Kinship Cafe and the Way of Kinship.
Each day includes a short reading, invitations to reflect or write, and an optional practice for bringing the ideas into ordinary life.
Naturalism · self · relationship · suffering · wellbeing · meaning · mortality · the sacred · community · participation
This is not a challenge, a test, or a promise to transform your life in fourteen days. A “day” is simply a suggested pause. Move at your own pace, keep your reflections private, skip what is not useful, and remain free to question what you encounter.
No previous knowledge of the Daodejing is needed.
Begin with the complete first day here. If you want to continue, the remaining days are available free inside the Kinship Cafe community.
No email address is required to read the first day.
A place for questions
You do not need to arrive with answers.
Kinship Cafe may be a good place for you if you:
- Sense that something is wrong and are willing to examine it differently
- Care about both personal and social wellbeing
- Are curious about what an ancient text might contribute to life today
- Value thoughtful conversation, including questions and disagreement
- Want community without being required to adopt a creed
People come from religious, spiritual, agnostic, atheist, and other backgrounds. No particular identity or set of beliefs is required. Our common ground is a willingness to engage seriously with a naturalistic reading of the Daodejing, remain curious, and make room for perspectives different from our own.
Kinship Cafe is not therapy, a religious congregation, or a packaged self-improvement program. We offer no quick fix or final set of answers—only an invitation to study, question, experience, and participate together.
Meet your host
Hello, I’m Jim Jones.
Kinship Cafe began with my desire to create a place for honest conversations about what truly matters—our wellbeing, the nature of reality, and how we might live together.
I am a lifelong student of philosophy, science, culture, and language. For more than two decades, I have taught courses on Christianity, Daoism, and Naturalism. That path eventually led to a sustained study of the Daodejing and to the questions from which the Way of Kinship has grown.
My role at Kinship Cafe is not to provide final answers. I prepare and guide our study, offer historical and philosophical context, and create room for people to question, disagree, make connections, and contribute what their own experience helps them see.
You are welcome here
The conversation is already underway.
You do not need prior knowledge of the Daodejing, a particular set of beliefs, or answers to the questions we are exploring.
Bring your questions, experiences, doubts, insights, and curiosity.
Kinship Cafe is a private community. Membership is free, and requests are reviewed to help protect the quality of the space.