I haven't written on this thing in awhile. I think its time I just plugged down and vomitted some thoughts, regardless of how unorganized they may be inside my head.
If you are unaware, I am a founding member of an experimental community house which officially started this September. Currently, there are five women and two men in this house.
I think what I have learned from past experiences with community is that the first few months are for figuring out what's what. What are our strengths? What are our weaknesses? What is tolerable and what needs to change as soon as possible? Is this an endeavor that actually seeks to follow God first and foremost?
I think, for better or for worse, I try to go into new situations like these with low expectations but high hopes. My heart is guarded by the realization that people are wounded from their pasts, plagued with the diseases of apathy and self-centeredness, and they are just plain busy. Therefore, people WILL let me down inevitably. And I will do the same to them. It also doesn't help that all of us are playing it by ear and really don't know that the heck we are doing.
BUT. God is bigger than our wounds, our apathy, our selfishness, our busy-ness and our lack of experience. And we love God and try to follow Him. Therefore, there is hope.
I love this house. I especially love certain moments when a spirit about this house quiets my soul and puts a tingle of joy in my spine. Its when Abram plays his guitar and sings in the living room. Or Kathleen practices piano downstairs for her volunteer position. Or Trevor makes curry and shares it. Or we all dip a spoon in my Nutella. Or Katie leads a devotion on meditation and it inspires the rest of us to get involved as a house in reaching out to others. Or Calida cleans, decorates and organizes the whole house in a weekend. Or Rebecca and Katie buy me groceries, fair trade stuff, and write me amazingly thoughtful and affirming cards for my birthday - just because they know that that's exactly what I would love.
I love that I can walk around braless and blurry eyed with tangled hair and stale, smudged mascara, in my sweats, well into the afternoon and not even think about whether or not my housemates will care.
This house has SO MANY amazing moments and undertones of love and acceptance. I believe that God is in them.
At the same time, we are nowhere near our original vision. Our house is perpetually untidy and borderline gross(which drives me nuts), we have far more ideas and good intentions than actual follow-up action, and we've been too busy, and perhaps apathetic in many cases, to bond as much as we should have in order to really build a community that can love and support eachother as a whole house and then in turn love and support our greater community as a house as well.
We have a lot to work on, which this semester has revealed to us. But we are growing, slowly but surely, and I'm so excited to see what next semester brings!
