a day in the life

an excerpt from a day last month -

this day was one of those days that demonstrated that life is mixed, that joy and suffering can abide.  good times and difficulty and pain can frame the same experiences of a day.

we started our day with getting up at 5 am to get some early-morning, pre-isaac work done.  he woke about 7 and we kicked in to the morning routine of the family to eat and get ready for school.  together geoff and i walked him to sayre and we raced on to the YMCA for a 20 minute workout.  it was clear and piercingly cold for an october day.

our weekly leadership meeting ran from 9 - 11 am and we had alot to catch up on.  there are so many good things unfolding and working out in the community.  we reflected on school for conversion and the success of that weekend.  then we had a heart-rending discussion of personal pain and struggle within a relationship in the community.  very little could be resolved but we felt our deep and real connection to one another in this interdependent life we've created.

geoff collected isaac from school and his hands were full of scholastic books we'd ordered a month ago.  as we walked, isaac didn't speak the whole way home (a true rarity) as he read through the newly acquired books.  geoff gulped down his lunch and headed out the door to work with kentucky refugee ministries for the afternoon to set up an apartment for refugees arriving from burundi. 

as i prepared tea and coffeecake for a meeting with our neighbor and friend, rona, isaac watched a dvd from the library about the life and teachings of jesus.  during the part when jesus taught his disciples that they must love their neighbor, isaac turned to me and said "mommy, we need to love calvin" (he is our mentally-ill neighbor who we are trying to get to know - he's a bit difficult and angry at times and a little more dangerous than i'm comfortable with).  from the mouth a wee one...

rona arrived and i talked about a possible community garden project on third street.  we shared a lovely two hours together as we spoke of our hope for the neighborhood, discussed what does it mean to be "local" and actively involved in the life of others and of her almost 20 years of experience in this place.  she gave us the great news that the church property upon which we'd like to do a large garden has given an initial green light.  it was very exciting.

jodie arrived as rona was leaving and she, asher, isaac and i left for the park.   as we walked, ryan came up on us on his bike and we talked together about the days events.  we only spent moments at the park because it was time for the kochs to go to kids cafe - a great inner-city program for neighborhood children where they can eat dinner together and do homework.  ryan and jodie  and their son, asher, attend weekly to make friends, love on the children and offer their assistance with school assignments.  i left isaac with them as they all played happily and raced home to meet will samson for a sociological interview he's conducting with several folks in the community. 

will is at the beginning stages of his phd dissertation at u. of kentucky.  we caught up a bit on the news of the community and the garden initiative and finished the interview.  during this time a few neighborhood girls stopped in and ms dee (our neighbor and friend who's been severely maimed by a freak assault fifteen years ago which left her with permament damage on her face and neck) came in with her supper in hand.  she sat with geoff and isaac in the living room and played.  as we said goodbye to will, we gathered our things to get to the kovacevics for dinner. 

isaac ran to the car in his spiderman suit.  ms dee waved goodbye.  we were already late.  we spent the evening with our bosnian friends and their visiting parents who don't speak a word of english.  isaac and tarik ran all over the house.  we ate a plateful of the most delicious pita, a bosnian speciality.  as aida went to pick up dino from his truck, we stayed on and did charades to try to communicate with his parents.  the boys laughed alot together.  it was a beautiful day. 

quote from the book i love

this book i'm reading - the beautiful life - is taking me to profoundly new places in my thinking.  if it weren't only available in england i'd get a copy for everybody.  from it, on a chapter about truth, comes this thought:

"a woman who had experienced emotional breakdown said that she had met the Devil in her visions and she recognised him for who he was because he had such hopeless eyes.  she said, 'you know, sin is not smoking too much or drinking too much.  it is something that grows inside you and makes you think you are right."

women of great faith

last night, during our fellowship gathering, we had special guests with us. a friend of communality's brought two women who are currently touring the u.s. sharing about their incredible ministries. one woman is from thailand. she helps care for and educate children of prostitutes and literally saves children from falling into that horrific trade. a story of her ministry - garden of hope - was featured as a cover article for this christianity today article earlier this year. the other woman is from burma. she and a team of other women live on the border of burma and thailand and they save women who have been traded across the border as sex slaves. they risk their lives every day for the sake of these forsaken women and sometimes they actually "buy back" their lives - the very work of the cross. the stories they shared were devastating and glorious - the testimonies of god's redemptive work in the darkest places. while listening to them, we were moved and blessed and unfortunately, deeply ashamed because this sex trade is funded predominantly by westerners.

as we started our worship together, i read psalm 84. in this psalm are these verses:

"even the sparrow has found a home

and the swallow a nest for herself,

where she may have her young -

a place near your alter, O lord almighty."

even the birds...

garden of hope

christianity today article

apple season

we had a wonderful day on saturday that included a visit to our favorite orchard - reed valley orchard.  here are some images.

what really make us happy

i wish everyone had the time to read bill mckibben's new book, "deep economy."  geoff read it about a month ago and insisted that i read it next.  now i understand why.  in the beginning, it's quite depressing because it has to be as it describes what is about our current situation - economically and environmentally.  but then things begin to look up and it is a book full of hope about our capacity to live within limits, locally with a healthy and balanced economy and rhythm of life.  here's an reflection on revealing measures of happiness:

" In general, researchers report that money consistently buys happiness right up to about $10,000 per capita income, and after that point the correlation disappears.  That's a useful number to keep in the back of your head - it's like the freezing point of water, one of those random numbers that just happens to define a crucial phenomenon on our planet.  'As poor countries like India, Mexico, the Philippines, Brazil, and South Korea have experienced economic growth, there is some evidence that their average happiness has risen,' Richard Layard reports.  But past the $10,000 point, there's a complete scattering: when the Irish were making a third as much as Americans they were reporting higher levels of satisfaction, as were the Swedes, the Danes, the Dutch....A sampling of Forbes  magazine's 'richest American' has happiness scores identical with those of the Pennsylvania Amish.

On the list of important mistakes we've made as a species, this one seems pretty high up.  A single-minded focus on increasing wealth has driven the planet's ecological systems to the brink of failure, without making us happier.  How did we screw up?"

devastating weather

yesterday, as i stopped in the office of the neighborhood elementary school where i help out in a classroom, i had a brief chat to the chief organizer of volunteers.  he is a gentle african american man in his sixties that, in his retirement, gives over most of his free time to serve this underprivileged school. 

since we've had days of rain, we could both acknowledge a collective sigh of relief around the place.  but we went on to talk about the water crisis in atlanta where my parents live and the drought that has devastated the area.  then he told me his wife has two sisters - one is just outside new orleans and as of yesterday they had 4 feet of water floating around them while her other sister evacuated her home near san diego due to fire.  come on. 

we agreed that the content of this week's weather could have easily been featured 20 years ago in a science fiction novel about the destruction of the environment as we know it.  now i don't believe in the rubbish end-0f-times theology coming out of a series of poorly written books in the u.s., but i do think it must be unavoidable this week to sit back and deny that things aren't going so well and we are largely responsible.  going back to the first chapters of genesis, before god offered a plan and a people to save the world, god gave humanity its first mission - multiply, fill the earth and care for creation (the right understanding of dominion as stewardship over something that isn't ours in the first place).  from the beginning, this was entrusted to us.  i shudder to think of the mess we're in now and i struggle to find hope during a week like this one.

scraps

a leunig poem we shared at the end of an evening with our friends clinton and lisa:

scraps

little scraps of peace and quiet

hope, conversation, handshakes -

all in dribs and drabs

a few crumbs of fun,

a tiny flake of beauty,

one teaspoon of enthusiasm -

offcuts of each other.

a skerrick of coummunity,

a bit of a kiss.

a snippet of eye contact,

a snippet of hospitality

a snippet of patience,

a shred of honour,

a wisp of good humour,

a sample of compassion -

leftovers, oddments,

remnants of the glorious situation.

a fragment of god,

not much, really.

sorry, time's up.

a great weekend

our community had a wonderful weekend of working together to host over 20 out-of-town guests for a gathering called 'school for conversion' (follow this link for more info).

we studied together, worked and ate together, prayed and paused together. it was a challenge and a joy for us to talk about communality - our life in communal mission - and learn more about our history. it's a surprise just how inspiring and healing it is to recount our past in public - warts and all! billy (our friend and fellow founder, pictured here on the left) wrote beautifully of this suprise over at the ashram.

as far as our feeling of 'being home' is concerned, this was a perfect book-end to our transition back into normal kentucky life. we are home!

bajram and family

we had the most wonderful bajram celebration with our bosnian friends last weekend.  bajram is the celebration to mark the end of ramadan.  For eastern european muslims it means LOTS of pita (a delicious filo pie), baclava, and turkish-style coffee.

here we are at aida and dino's house  - from left to right...sean, sherry, dino, aida, dino's parents, patrick, and isaac, tarik and lydia in the front row.

rid yourself of junk mail

our dear friend Lydia passed this useful link on to us.

http://www.greendimes.com/

it's a way to stop that terrible (and sometimes compelling) junk mail while also planting trees...all for just $15