A blog entry has been well over due, and as I sit melting in a humid sauna-esque communication centre in northern Ghana, I still feel the love of community thousands of miles away, and the need to write something here, on this attempt at a blog.
The year commitment we all made in August of last year is gradually coming to an end. I have already parted ways with our home at 215 North Avenue, and others too, will soon disperse, as some study abroad, some visit schools, and some just simply move on. But a friend of mine once expressed his thoughts on community by saying that community is not locational. And I believe that to be true, more now, at the end of our months living together, than I did the first day I carried the few boxes of my belongings into the north avenue home.
The months in our house were often times rough. Sometimes tense. Sometimes awkward. Lots of times uncomfortablly humbling. But most of all, life changing. I believe we all wrestled with ourselves, eachother, and God, as we trudged through a thick fog of unknown. I, personally, was forced to see the lack of love I had in my life. I was challanged daily, to not just talk the talk, but discover what walking looks like. I realized I needed to begin by crawling, because I definitely did not know how to walk.
Andy, Dustin, Miller, Potter, Raven, and Renee still continue to love and live together. I believe Brent is working in south Georgia, and I am currently in West Africa. But community, and love, and the body of Christ that unites us all, is never locational, and that excites me.
Before I left the house last month I wrote something to try and encompass a bit of life in our house. Enjoy:
well its sunday afternoon and we just finished our lunch
Raven's making sweet tea, or some special julip punch
Dustin's on a hanging spree with hammer and nails in hand
and Brent is contemplating the politics of some far off distant land
Andy just got back from playing guitar for those lovers of st. mary
Miller grabs her bible and yells, bye, i'm off to berry
Renee is sharing about the kids she lovingly feeds each day
and Potter's playing piano singing psalms that drift away
I'm brewing us some coffee, caffiene is what we're needing
cuz in less than thirty minutes we'll start another house meeting
well, Raven's writing down everything we mention and discuss
Frannie and the water bill and we're all trying not to fuss
Dustin listens intently, drawing a diagram of his propsed plan
Andy leans against the wall nodding, saying 'i understand'
Miller sighs, swinging her feet, and says lets not forget to love
Brent slowly sips his coffee he brewed in his kitchen up above
Potter hugs her knees, quoting Mother Teresa or even Jesus
Renee brings us back on point, 'what can these issues teach us?'
our discussions wander to and fro, we straddle the loving fence
and i'm off to make stronger coffee, cuz comminity is pretty tense
the sun is setting quickly and our stomachs must be fed
tonight its a Tommey-tuna-mix, with cheese on toasted bread
Andy stirs the gravy, Dustin's heating up the peas
Miller's all excited cuz we bought pepper jack cheese
Raven grabs the plates, Renee's getting the water
Brent has a pillow, frantically chasing Potter
I hear someone at the door, I wonder who it could be
opening the door I'm met with Frannie jumping up on me
'no time to play, girl, its time for us to eat'
and then I put the half chewed shoes back on my feet
its tense and tough, and its often hard to love even those with whom we live
the bills, the dishes, the dinners, the simple opinions we always give
small things with great love, is not a big thing in disguise
its listening, its humbling, its learning compromise
its letting go, its emptying, its giving your time away
its never big or noticeable, and thats how it should stay.
living together is a small thing, there's nothing great about it
but great love fills this place, we couldn't survive without it.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Cold weather, warm home
Freezing rain falls freely on our home here in north Rome this frigid Saturday evening, as I sit warmly typing in our dark dining room. Raven has run to the store to get pancake mix for dinner (tonight is breakfast night!), Dustin is outside attempting to emblaze our fire pit with a monstrosity of flame and heat fulfilling his week long desire to dwell in our back yard amidst the stark contrast of this sudden winter coldness and the fiery heat. Erin Miller is off at a special needs camp for children, while Erin Potter is joining Andy at a D-Now at a local church singing and worshiping with the youth of that church. Renee is in the next room putting a puzzle together with a young girl from our neighbourhood. Brent is upstairs reading, I am downstairs typing, and all is well at 215 North Ave.
Our garden has seen its better days, and though we held out for the poor heads of cabbages struggling to prosper in the frosty air, we are finally ready to bid them farewell with the rest of the composting plants, and look ahead to our spring garden.
Over the past month our house has been constantly filled with children from the neighbourhood. Being the Christmas season, the children were out of school for almost a month and often spent their free days at our house, blessing us with laughter and stories and games. We have, however, discovered that while connecting with these children is undeniably important and indispensable, we must consistently take steps forward and never be complacent with the positive fellowship that we have been able to establish, and continue to establish, with the children, but we must constantly push ourselves to the next level. A very obvious step we could take, and have felt like we should take, now is making the connection with the parents of the children. While we know personally almost all of the children's parents, we have not pursued those relationships as intentionally nor intensively as we think we should, and therefore we are hoping to bridge that gap soon.
The artistic bug has bitten most of us in the house and there are paint brushes, pallets, acrylics and oils and canvases galore. One child from the neighbourhood saw this and is now so excited about the possibility of him being able to paint with us. Every time he comes over he asks if he can paint. While it is usually in the most inopportune times, we are hoping to soon transform the upstairs den into a room where children can paint and draw and colour and express themselves freely and artistically.
We are so blessed to have love and support from so many faithful followers of Christ and we are so thankful for friends and family and even complete strangers who love God and us so much, and consistently look for ways to serve in Christ's name. We often wish we had a schedule of community events, or daily activities in which we could invite others to join us, but we are reminded that the reason we don't is perhaps because we are not so much an institutional organization with a rigid agenda to follow, goals to meet, promises to fulfill. Rather we are just ordinary people trying to do things a little different. We want to love God, love each other, and love our neighbors. And learn how the fullness of that idea looks in the human experience. How do we love God as much as humanly possible? How can we love each other more and more every day? How do we show love to our neighbours?
Living together is gradually teaching us a small part of that answer, and with that answer we hope to do "small things with great love." Small things don't always make the news, or church bulletins, or newsletters, or even blog entries, but hopefully our great love will make an impact on the Kingdom of God we prayerfully wish to further.
Thank you for prayerfully loving us on this journey, may God bless you and use you to further His Kingdom wherever you may be.
Our garden has seen its better days, and though we held out for the poor heads of cabbages struggling to prosper in the frosty air, we are finally ready to bid them farewell with the rest of the composting plants, and look ahead to our spring garden.
Over the past month our house has been constantly filled with children from the neighbourhood. Being the Christmas season, the children were out of school for almost a month and often spent their free days at our house, blessing us with laughter and stories and games. We have, however, discovered that while connecting with these children is undeniably important and indispensable, we must consistently take steps forward and never be complacent with the positive fellowship that we have been able to establish, and continue to establish, with the children, but we must constantly push ourselves to the next level. A very obvious step we could take, and have felt like we should take, now is making the connection with the parents of the children. While we know personally almost all of the children's parents, we have not pursued those relationships as intentionally nor intensively as we think we should, and therefore we are hoping to bridge that gap soon.
The artistic bug has bitten most of us in the house and there are paint brushes, pallets, acrylics and oils and canvases galore. One child from the neighbourhood saw this and is now so excited about the possibility of him being able to paint with us. Every time he comes over he asks if he can paint. While it is usually in the most inopportune times, we are hoping to soon transform the upstairs den into a room where children can paint and draw and colour and express themselves freely and artistically.
We are so blessed to have love and support from so many faithful followers of Christ and we are so thankful for friends and family and even complete strangers who love God and us so much, and consistently look for ways to serve in Christ's name. We often wish we had a schedule of community events, or daily activities in which we could invite others to join us, but we are reminded that the reason we don't is perhaps because we are not so much an institutional organization with a rigid agenda to follow, goals to meet, promises to fulfill. Rather we are just ordinary people trying to do things a little different. We want to love God, love each other, and love our neighbors. And learn how the fullness of that idea looks in the human experience. How do we love God as much as humanly possible? How can we love each other more and more every day? How do we show love to our neighbours?
Living together is gradually teaching us a small part of that answer, and with that answer we hope to do "small things with great love." Small things don't always make the news, or church bulletins, or newsletters, or even blog entries, but hopefully our great love will make an impact on the Kingdom of God we prayerfully wish to further.
Thank you for prayerfully loving us on this journey, may God bless you and use you to further His Kingdom wherever you may be.
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