Another World (February 2014)

A Video

The scene on the bike loosening the shirt near the neck struck me.

Another World (February 2014) by Joy

With routine days spent in such proximity, my daughter and I live in a unique world where a toddler and an adult inhabit the same space.  At times I’m overtaken by my connection to her- my firstborn.  Even though our contact is constant and overwhelming, I still want her close.  At night, when I wake scared (When despair for the world grows in me/and I wake in the night at the least sound/in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be –Wendell Berry), my first thought is to slip into her bed, cuddle close, imbibe the rhythm of her nighttime breath, and whisper thanks over and over and over for the moments I’ve had with her.  And I beg for more, for as many moments as we can have.  Sometimes I hold her so close I imagine absorbing her back inside me so that my body might again be her safe place where she is closer to me, and a bit more removed from that ‘outside’ world I find so hard to trust.

She dances around the house creating her own small worlds from blankets, discarded papers, stacked books and any old thing she imagines life into.  She talks through her every thought and I have to guess nothing about her ideas, fears, hopes or intentions.  I listen to her soliloquies and notice how she will weave in such little details of the day.  When I listen, I can hear what she’s learned and how she absorbs it all through play:

• Once, when I fix her toy with glue she pretends to break and repair household objects for several hours thereafter. 
• After a trip to the hospital and the pharmacy she carefully explains to a throng of dolls and stuffed animals that they should be sure to drink lots of water and juice so that they can feel better.
• I drop my phone in frustration grunting, “What the heck?!”  A few hours later she tells me in snotty frustration, “Mom, I have boogs.  What the heck?!”
• I can hear her arguing with Luke in the dining room and he tells her she’s ‘unbelievable’.  So she climbs the steps to the second floor to report, “Mom, I’m undeliebable”.

Always learning, repeating, asking, refining, testing.

Exasperating and illogical as her toddler world may be, I feel privileged to spend my days in and out of its periphery.  I can feel- it’s palpable- that in her world there is no pretense or hatred or dishonesty.  In her transparent curiosity, she is light to me.  She is love and hope and every good thing I long for in the adult world I generally inhabit.  She and her 30 lb ilk are beyond precious.  There is no word for it.  Sometimes I just think that if every person in the world would look a toddler in the eyes and listen and hear – Oh, how could they do any of the ungodly things that we do?  How could anyone do an ounce of evil to threaten all the shiny, hopeful, unblemished goodness of a tiny human who’s just piecing it all together?

There’s no war in those eyes.  No rape.  No industrial mayhem.  No slavery.  It’s a world of possibility.  I teach her, true.  But it’s no cliché to say that perhaps she is the true teacher here.

And yet daily I find myself faced with the task of letting her go (because surely she belongs to no one, not even me), of walking near her, but not an obstacle to her growth, independence or strength.  And worst (scariest, hardest?) of all, I must find some way to loose her into a world I do not trust with her.  Obviously she’ll meet countless loving, wonderful, art-ful others who will feed her soul and buoy her.  But what about that one or two or three who might mean her harm, or see her as a means to an end?

Oh world, let her live fully here.  Let her be free in as many ways that there are.  And let her shine through whatever darknesses lurk on her path.  Help her know herself, trust herself, love herself deeply.  Give her clarity and assurance.  Let her and her peers teach us all, for we need to inhabit their curious world more than we’ll ever acknowledge.

Another World (February 2014) by Josh W.

Who nose my world?

 

This world smells.  I could describe to you how to get from my house to the office merely by following your nose.  First, go straight down the path until you begin to sense the calming sandalwood trickling from the shop on the corner.  Turn right.  Go past the burnt popcorn smell.  Turn left once the aroma of stale animal urine and rotting flesh pierces your nose.  Go past the intoxicating fresh cardamom, cumin, and curry being ground by hand.  Continue on beyond the fishy, earthy smells that will be on your right.  Once you begin to choke on diesel fumes you’re nearly to the next turn.  But wait until you sense the loaf of bread fresh out of the oven to turn left.  Carry on and it will smell like an amusement park, you know, the old vomit and woodchips utilized to soak up the vomit smell, near that ride that goes upside down and backwards.  The diesel fumes will be back at this point, ignore it, just keep going straight.  Now you’re in for a treat.  Go past the pungent aroma wafting in your unassuming nostrils – it’s kind of like the stench of a hundred brutally used Porta-Potties after a well attended, undercooked meat serving, Indian wedding.  Don’t worry; you’re nearly there.  Turn right once the burnt popcorn odor reappears.  Left at the garlicky dal being cooked, and if it’s morning, cardamom and cinnamon will stimulate your olfactory bulbs.  Wander past the stink of scaled chicken skin, stale urine, and feces.  Finally, turn left at the diesel fumes.  And if you have a cold, then I guess you’ll just have to use a map.

 

Another World (February 2014) by Kate

I'm not really a writer, but here's a few things I can share with you all about my world right now:

This new place is not as I expected. I am different here, I spend my time differently. I care a lot about the quality of wood for the fire but not as much about my to do list for the day. I feel the gravity of our decision to come here, but I don't worry as much.

I love chopping wood and hanging the laundry, but I find dreaming and planning exhausting. I feel welcome in these woods and I've discovered that I don't mind stinkbugs. But I don't deal well with the cold.

I'm not at home. It feels like I'm living in someone else's house. ..someone tall and strong, and braver than me. I'm not sure where my home is. I had thought I would feel settled and this would feel like home by now. But I can see now that I'm here that it may take a long time. I suppose this is ok.

I have a lot of hopes for who I can be here and what I can do. But I think I need to go about it all gently. I feel most at home now with you all, dear friends. 

Another World (February 2014) by Jonathan

I was reflecting with a friend the other day that I inhabit many different worlds in which I am the only common denominator. This is not a great revelation, I realize, but rather a truism.... everyone has this same experience. Nonetheless, since I have people around me that are picture-takers, and a picture is worth a thousand words, I thought I'd share a bit about the world I'm in right now: Puerto Rico.

One of the highlights (as you might expect) of being home is that i get to hang out with my niece. She is 2 1/2, like puzzles and has a ear-piercing scream when she doesn't get her way. Here, Tío (Spanish for uncle) is cracking almonds with Amaiyah.

Its also been great to loaf around the house with my sister (Raquel, down from Harrisonburg) and my brother David (proud parent of the little face).

Puerto Rico is a colony of the US (we still have colonies?? WTF!) and has seen rapid societal changes in the past 100 years (like a lot of the world, I guess) My grandmother, at 93, has seen a lot of that. She told me while we were visiting this past weekend how she bought her first pair of shoes at 10 years old when she made enough money harvesting tabacco to buy them herself. She started first grade in school and dropped out when an American came to the classroom and she was terrified that the tall white man was going to eat her. That is the total of her formal education.

However, there are still a few ancient traditions that are fighting their death. A "parranda" is the Puerto Rican version of Christmas caroling where the neighbors gather and play traditional instruments (cuatro: the guitar-looking thing; güiro: the hollow gourd; maraca: you've seen The Mask) and sing folk music, sometimes terribly out of tune. The girl in the salmon shirt is my sister-in-law.

This man is my crazy uncle who, after a long professional career retired to a "traditional" life-style where he cooks over open fire and plows land with a team of oxen. You've probably heard me talk about him. Also, he looks just like my late grandfather did at that age.

Of course no trip home would be complete without letting my mother shower me with nice things and an off-season (It's winter!! Cant you tell?) trip to the beach.

If you care to know, ask me sometime about "becoming an adult" both in a family context and in a societal context (the last time I lived in PR I was 16). So there, 7,000+ word email! Wow, that is the longest email I even wrote!

Much love.

Vanity (January 2014) by Jonathan

Short story long:
My group of friends that I affectionately call the Hippy commune is a collection of relatively like-minded people. Some of us lived in a house together in college and have managed to remain each others support system through travels abroad, marriages and children and miscarriages, through changes is work and spirituality. We have hurt each other plenty and are helping to raise each others kids and are still learning how to value each other in our differences. 
For a while there, we were actively looking for a way that we could live out our desire to be part of each others lives on a day-to-day basis. We started working on a book designed for people starting intensional communities, formally met to work towards this every two weeks, formed work-groups, looked at land and legal procedures and beat each other up trying to articulate our "common vision" that would be the centerpiece of our lives together. 
We soon discovered that our live vision, whether individual, or as a family, or as a group were very hard to talk about. It turns out that even after some 7-10 years of being good friends, our vision and desires and expectations are so intimate, so close to our hearts that they were hard to speak and hard to have critiqued. But we knew it was supposed to be hard, so we kept right on going. Round after round, we kept looking for new ways to see ourselves and our troubles and to try to make our visions compatible. We made charts and drew pictures and had one-on-ones and cried and called each other out on our bull shit (I got a lot of this, by the way).
In the end, it fell apart. In a whirlwind of exhaustion and eagerness and longing, we stopped our formal meetings. Over the next couple of months, we had a lot of "what you said was hurtful" and "what did we do wrong" and "so what does this mean now" conversations. In retrospect, one of the things that happened is that the formal process high-jacket our friendships. We were so invested in what we were trying to do together, put so much energy into getting somewhere, that we lost each other and we lost the time and energy to care for each other and to accept each other. Thankfully, by the time we tried this formal process, we had years of love and affection and working-through-stuff built up in the reserves, so the hurts of this mess we made were not insurmountable. 
The happy ending to this story is that our relationships survived. And some small changes have been made in our living situations, and we are healing from that process (and gone through some others since) and that whatever it is that keeps us needing each other is still true. I'm grateful for this.

An off-topic but relevant post by Jonathan

Early in the morning, before the sun can touch the dew, two farmers walk the narrow roads out to their fields. They have always been farmers, like their fathers and mothers before them. But they are not alike. One loves her field, loves her work, loves Gods gifts that come through her little plot. To her, the farm is alive, and she herself is part of it. The other sows begrudgingly and waits impatiently and harvests without gratitude. To her the plot is an object, a means, and she does not spend time there if she has a choice. The affectionate farmer will observe the field, see what grows, smell the soil, watch the seasons. She is attentive and will adapt her ways as the field asks her to. The dismissive farmer, on the other hand, will be blind to her field: she will plow when the soil is too wet, water on schedule regardless of rain, and not know the difference between good bugs and bad bugs. The affectionate farmer is a dynamic farmer, a farmer who will make mistakes and learn from them, a farmer who will be satisfied with good work. The begrudging farmer looks for opportunities to take shortcuts, does what she has always done, and suffers the work she must do.

“All work is empty save when there is love; And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.” 1 In this parable it is the attentive, dynamic farmer that works with love, who's work is a labor of love. We are called by God that is Love to enter into God's work like the affectionate farmer.

We are like the dynamic farmer when we join those who came before, who heard God speak “behold, I will do something new”: behold, I've created out of nothing; behold, I go before you, travel light; behold, I have made you a people; behold, I AM, even without a Temple; behold, my mercy extends even to your captors; behold, I come to you helpless; behold, death will not have the last say; behold, you are free from appeasing Me (and each other). Behold, New Heavens and a New Earth.

This is our story: the story of a dynamic God coming to us, speaking to us, saving us, in ways expected and unexpected. We belong in this story where God does something new. Even our individual lives reflect our Makers dynamic nature. I am not who I was twenty, five, or even one year ago. Neither are our friendships or families or marriages. Neither are our congregations or our towns. The ancients named the dynamic nature of the world when they said “you cannot step into the same river twice”2.

So it is with love (and because of Love) that we seek to become like the affectionate farmer who understands that the field is alive. We, like the farmer, belong to a tradition that has an open posture. She is attuned to things that she knows, like the coming of the seasons and the names of the seeds. But she is also on the lookout for things she has not seen before. Because she loves her field and is part of it, she will seek out ways to be a better farmer. In our modern age, we call this “life-long learning”, but don't be fooled by the sterile-sounding name: it is nothing short of love for our fields.

However, most of us are not farmers and our “love being attentive” can look many different ways. Maybe its more time in silent places that sharpens our senses, maybe its the stimulation of books and schooling. A hobby that is far out of our comfort zone might shed light on our work. Or a mentor might guide show us a direction in which we can grow. Trying to find common ground with someone that we “can't relate to” might sharpen our eyes to see how the Spirit is at work.

Whatever the path, whatever the field, we will act faithfully as we grow attentive to the new things that God is doing in our midst. May the God who causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust give us eyes to see and courage to join in to the coming forth of the New Heavens and New Earth.

1 From The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran
2 Heraclitus of Ephesus

Respectfully, Johnathan Schlabach