a Godsend

I've been away from the blogging world for some time on account of a busy schedule, but I've been wanting to blog on a few topics that hopefully I'll get to one of these days.
BUT we did have a big event happen in the life of our group here lately that needs to be blogged about, and that was the weekend visit from Dan and Jeanine and some of their community members from Canada.
Dan Lowe spent some years as a member of Communality, an intentional community in Lexington Kentucky where Jese has visited a few times. We got to spend a few months with Dan a couple of summers back while he was taking care of business to get to Canada and needed a place to stay. We estabished a quick friendship with him because he's not only a likeable and outgoing guy, but also an incredible source of knowledge and insight. When our group was first opening ourselves up to the concepts of community/new-monasticism, Dan served as an encourager and mentor. So we were incredibly stoked when we learned that he and his wife that we had heard so much about would be visiting us with some members of their newly established community out of Edmonton.

Truth be told, it has been a helluva hard year for our group, from personal crises to our collective struggle to hang on to our original ideals. After finishing up our big summer project ( the community garden, which needs a post of its own) we were a little bit aimless, wondering where to go from there, what was next, and especially, why? Why were we striving toward this nebulous goal of "community" that none of us really knew what looked like or how to get to? Why were we spending all of our energy battling against a church body ? Why were people not interested in the ideas that had taken our breath away and got us dreaming of a better way to follow Christ than we had ever known? It was a discouraging time.

Enter Dan and Jeanine's group. I was initially worried about the weekend, feeling like there wasn't much optimism we could lend to this budding community. But as the weekend played out and we ate together, talked together, and listened to their stories I was revitalized. Rachel, one of their members, shared about their groups formation and about the house she shares with her husband, another married couple, and three bachelors. Her eyes lit up as she talked about how "beautifully messy" it was and I experienced anew my own enthusiasm. There's something unquestionably spiritual about this kind of get together; a hospitality from each party that is as willing to receive as it is to give. Luke and Heather graciously shared their home and we all pitched in to cook - the Edmonton folks split us a winter's worth of firewood. I was given an armful of new books!

The more I process through the weekend and the conversations, the more I realize what a great gift it was. We connected with amazing people, rekindled our dreams, strengthened our resolve... it was truly a godsend.