claire

I think Heather finally convinced the cat to make our back yard her home. Claire (the cat) used to live in the valley, but her owners are moving to the city and can't take her along. So we've been trying to lure her up to our place. But even with our feeding her only up here, Heather had to bring the cat up at least ten times. She's a skittish cat and kept wandering back down to her old home, where she felt secure, even though there was no food there.

With patience, though, and a lot of coaxing and stroking, I think we convinced her that we'll take good care of her up here. She even caught two mice the other day, which probably makes this place more attractive as well. I think it will be a much better life for her here, with more attention and care and more territory to explore (without trucks and tractors roaring through). I was beginning to think we'd have to give up, and was frustrated that she seemed to prefer to starve rather than move to a new territory. But she's spent the last two nights here now.

It made me think, too, that we're usually a lot like that cat. We're being offered a life that is much better for us but we cling to our comfortable habits and places that make us feel secure just because they are known. We are so slow to trust. Especially when we are so used to just scraping by, and the offer seems too good to be true.

But God is patient and persistent with his offer.

round about us

Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion,
which cannot be moved, but abides for ever.
As the mountains are round about Jerusalem,
so the Lord is round about his people,
from this time forth and for evermore.

That was part of my prayer this morning, from Psalm 125. Good words when you're feeling a bit shaky. The prospects for a retreat in December are not looking good right now, and we're uncertain again about how to proceed. It's easy to get people interested but much harder to get them involved in a real way, especially ministry workers who are very busy already. So we're left entering the slow winter season with not much on the retreat work horizon.

But I think I'm realizing that I've relied too much on the success of the retreats; my hopes and identity have been too much connected to that work. The opportunities that have opened up here have been a very helpful and hopeful sign for us of God's leading. But it's God's care and leading that we need to trust in, not the success of some particular work, even if it's a good work that God has provided for us. Writing this now, it seems rather obvious, but it's felt like a revelation to me. It's so easy to slowly, imperceptibly shift our trust from (the invisible) God to some visible group or work that seems concrete and reliable and able to sustain us.

"...and all nations have been ashamed of them"

Some friends are visiting from Evanston to help weed the strawberry fields today. In the field, women's struggle for voting rights came up, and I was reminded of G.K. Chesterton's commentary on that subject (in What's Wrong With the World). He argued that government, and therefore voting, was an ugly business. I'm not sure it's as good an argument against women's voting as an argument against anyone voting:

Seemingly from the dawn of man all nations have had governments; and all nations have been ashamed of them. Nothing is more openly fallacious than to fancy that in ruder or simpler ages ruling, judging and punishing appeared perfectly innocent and dignified. These things were always regarded as the penalties of the Fall; as part of the humiliation of mankind, as bad in themselves.

...This is the first essential element in government, coercion; a necessary but not a noble element. I may remark in passing that when people say that government rests on force they give an admirable instance of the foggy and muddled cynicism of modernity. Government does not rest on force. Government is force...

All government then is coercive; we happen to have created a government [democracy] which is not only coercive; but collective.

...In self-governing countries [the] coercion of criminals is a collective coercion. The abnormal person is theoretically thumped by a million fists and kicked by a million feet. If a man is flogged we all flogged him; if a man is hanged, we all hanged him. That is the only possible meaning of democracy, which can give any meaning to the first two syllables and also to the last two. In this sense each citizen has the high responsibility of a rioter. Every statute is a declaration of war, to be backed by arms. Every tribunal is a revolutionary tribunal. In a republic all punishment is as sacred and solemn as lynching.

Our next discussion with the teen group is going to be on voting and the political process. Should be interesting.

another friend?

A couple months ago I sent a description of our first retreat to a mailing list for street churches across the country. Soon after, a guy from Connecticut wrote me. He said he had volunteered at a soup kitchen in Chicago years ago, a Franciscan place, and they might be interested in our retreats. It seemed like a long shot and not exactly the kind of place we had in mind, so I forgot about it. But then last week something made me remember that suggestion and I tried contacting them.

A reply came right away. The Franciscan priest who directs the soup kitchen, the Marquard Center, said he was "quite interested" and would be "honored" to come for a visit sometime. Folks there call him Father Manny. (There's an article about him available here.)

So we're hoping to get to meet him in person soon, maybe if we can get another "come and see" retreat organized for December. For church and ministry staff people who might refer folks to us in the future. We'd like to do an advent retreat, focusing on Mary's magnificat again, which seems perfect for that season.

one man's trash

Last week we spotted two box springs in front of someone's house with a "FREE" sign on them. We were waiting on a box spring that someone had promised us (a volunteer here is still using it) and another one we had was ancient, so we're glad to replace it.

And when I was in Evanston delivering vegetables last Wednesday, Brandon shared some of the many gallons of (excellent quality) juice he had saved from the dumpster. He also told of being confronted by the police at another dumpster that he and some friends were exploring. The cop asked them what they were doing. But one of the guys (a visitor from South Africa) thought he had asked how they were doing, so he answered, "Good... good."

friends are community too

We're having a discussion night this weekend with the teens here. During the last discussion there was interest in the topic of "community" (something we're also discussing in Sunday school), so I thought we'd follow up on that. But I'd like to talk about the different forms of community, like friends, or family, not just the "intentional community" form that is usually discussed. I think the teens might be more interested in these forms, and they are also more able to affect these communities, make them stronger.

I was reminded of something I wrote in my journal two years ago ("organic community"):

"The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed upon the ground, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he knows not how. The earth produces of itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear..." (Mk 4.26-28)

The problem of idolizing our institutions arises with the power and pride of gathered people. So the temptation is greatest when we come together in groups. But we are meant to come together, we need to. So how do we come together without institutionalizing our communities, how do we cooperate with one another without idolizing our organizations?

I think there are clues in the imagery used to describe community in the bible. Images like a growing plant, a living body. Images of marriage and family. These are natural, God-given, God-created relationships and organisms. Not man-made institutional relationships or humanly designed organizations. The difference is quite stark. Yet what we call "community" (clubs, religious organizations, political groupings) are almost always of the institutional sort. Even among Christian intentional communities, the designation "intentional" speaks of how much these are human creations. Yet most people's more satisfying experience of community is among naturally occurring friendships and family relationships. Natural community. Organic community. The kind that sprouts and grows "we know not how."

This is also how I envision the one, true community we all long for, the body of Christ. A living being, given by God, spreading like leaven and growing like a plant, not designed or governed or ordered by us, with diverse members known by the head and coordinated by the head, the head being Christ.

Can we recognize and let ourselves be drawn into the life of this organic community, instead of continually constructing (and idolizing) our own organizations?

"the sheep follow him, for they know his voice"

I want to use this favorite Taizé song (Greek for "Lord, have mercy") in worship Sunday, with these lines from Psalm 81:

In distress you called, and I delivered you;
I answered you in the secret place of thunder...

Hear, O my people, while I admonish you!
O Israel, if you would but listen to me!

I am the Lord your God,
who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.

But my people did not listen to my voice;
Israel would have none of me.
So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts,
to follow their own counsels.

O that my people would listen to me,
that Israel would walk in my ways!
I would feed you with the finest of the wheat,
and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.

I want to focus on listening to God's voice, as both a source of guidance and our basis for unity (as opposed to the usual organizational structures and decision-making). I'll also use Jesus' image of the sheep recognizing and following the shepherd's voice:

The shepherd calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice...

I am the good shepherd; I know my own and my own know me, as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep, that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will heed my voice. So there shall be one flock, one shepherd. (Jn 10.3-4,14-16)

peaches for free

There's a white peach tree in the yard near us that's been so loaded with peaches we thought its branches might break. I wondered if the growing season here is long enough to ripen them, but now they're getting sweet enough to eat and people are starting to gather them. Heather added some to the grape juice she made. If there's still enough ripe ones out there I think I'll cobble some for the teen gathering tonight.

It reminds me of a funny song I heard a couple days ago: "Movin' to the country, gonna eat a lotta peaches... Millions of peaches, peaches for me, millions of peaches, peaches for free..." (Listen here)

impersonal hospitality?

Thoughts about hospitality have been hounding me lately. I've strongly encouraged hospitality in the past, and there is definite biblical support for the practice. But I've struggled with the situations that arise in intentional communities concerning hospitality, situations we now find ourselves in the middle of.

Hospitality in the usual sense has to do with people that either are friends that want to come and visit you, or people in need of help, the poor or strangers that have no place to stay. In both of these cases I see the spiritual value of hospitality and the emotional motivation behind it. But in intentional communities there tends to be people that request to visit, not because they want to visit any of us personally, and not because they are in need of a place to stay, but because they want to "experience community" or are on a tour seeing different forms of such communal organizations. Because of the regularity of such requests a hospitality coordinator is usually assigned, who then tries to find housing and meal hosting for guests among different households in the community (unless there is some form of guest house or communal meals). So you end up with the rather strange situation of having guests that you did not invite and who are not coming to see you particularly. I'm finding it hard to muster much enthusiasm for this kind of hospitality.

I think part of the problem is the institutionalization of hospitality. Because the community has been made into a communal organization, both the approach of guests and the response of the hosts becomes less personal. Guests come not to see any particular persons but to see the organization. And (at least here) the individual hosts do not personally invite the guests that they want to welcome, but instead fill a more generalized hospitality function. Of course there are possibilities for personal connections in the actual hosting, but I think the institutional way it is arranged make these connections much less likely. As I've said before, institutions are not persons and so cannot love. And the more we depend on and conform to them the more we become like them.

So it's very important, I think, to preserve the personal nature of hospitality. We have prepared a place here for hospitality, so I'm sure we'll be doing a lot of it, but it seems important to resist being drawn into (or pressured into) the more institutional version of hospitality that appears in intentional communities.

This is just another example of the difference between the body of Christ and the organizational "bodies" that we create. In Christ's body there is no external form or structure for people to try to interact with impersonally, no hierarchy or standardization that separates us from one another as persons. The Spirit that connects us and gives the body its nature works only from within individuals. Through the love that only individual persons can give.