a surrender - 33

(Continuing "a surrender", chapter five)

 

who are my mother

and my brothers? 

The first time I remember seeing her, she was happy, waving a big colorful flag near the back of the church, with the music loud and everybody singing. She would flick her head as she sang, sending her long brown hair flying like the flag.

I came to this church because I had heard about it from some friends. It was the church of a community of people who had chosen to live together in one neighborhood in this city, to try to share their lives together, based on the teachings of Jesus and the practices of the first Christians. It was a very close community, and I was recognized as a visitor right away. An older couple invited me to lunch after church. And when they found out how I had been living for the last few years, they quickly began looking for somewhere I could stay and help out in the community.

They soon found a place for me. One of the larger houses owned by the community was shared by ten people, mostly single, some older and some younger. One of the men who lived there had muscular dystrophy, and others in the household helped him. So I was invited to move in there. If I would be a caregiver for this man, I could live there without paying anything, meals included. This sounded just right for me. I had been looking for a way to be more helpful to others, especially in the colder months when I couldn’t walk. And the people in this community seemed to care about a lot of the same things that I did. So I stopped walking in the middle of that summer and agreed to stay. 

Continued...