"The best laid plans"

An article I wrote for our L'Arche Atlanta Fall 2013 newsletter:

                In our weekly planning meeting, it was decided that something free and fun would fit the bill for Saturday.  Sara suggested Sweetwater Park, just a 20-minute drive from home, with a relatively wide, flat, short trail to an old mill – a spot that she’s wanted to show the house for a long time. 

John, Terry, and I weighed in, and everyone seemed gung-ho for this adventure.  (Patrick and Tim were out of town.)  And thus, we had made plans.

                Saturday morning came, and I looked at the forecast.  Chance of rain was to increase throughout the day, so we decided to go first thing after breakfast. 

                It was already drizzly, so I grabbed my raincoat and prompted everyone else to grab theirs – “just in case.”  Everyone did so without batting an eye.

                As we approached the exit for Sweetwater Park in the pouring rain, Sara said from the driver’s seat, “You know, this may have been a good day to do something indoors, like use those free movie passes.” 

I looked over and said, “Sara.  We.  Are planners.”  Indeed, we have a house full of people who love plans.  It had not quite occurred to anyone that we might change the plans for the day. 

                We were 20 minutes from home at this point, so we decided to drive into the park and assess from there.  It was certainly not too late to make our way to the movie theater. 

                We pulled up and decided the rain was light enough to go in to the Interpretive Center.  We checked out exhibits of taxidermied animals, sustainable building practices, and history of the mill. 

                And then we checked in with each other - to continue with our adventure or head home?  John, who needs to take special care with his knees, gave a green light.  Terry was, without surprise, a “go” for “going” – especially outdoors.  Sara would hike on any day, rain or shine.  And I was ready and willing to see how far the trail and our energies would take us.  So we continued with Sara as our guide, John our pacesetter, myself the songleader, and Terry protectively rounding out the rear. 

                We made our way, noticing trees and plants, singing songs, and getting wet.  We arrived at a curve in the trail with a big body of water, paused to take in the view, and kept walking.  Soon, John said “I’m ready to turn around.”  So we promptly made a 180 and headed back.

               As our little house of 6 people continues to live the journey of daily life together, we are becoming a community.  We are learning about ourselves, one another, and how to go about all of this – together.  And we’re growing as we courageously follow these learnings.  Our adventure at Sweetwater Park revealed to me with gentle humor, both the courage and the attentiveness it takes for us to move forward on this journey.  

weasels and geese 1: weasels

Oh dear, there's so much pondering, musing, and experiencing that's been happening the past months as I/we've been living L'Arche Atlanta!  Was just looking back at my last post - so much more musing since then around the same topic!

For now - I've been reflecting more on calling/lifestyle/life's work.  This has been stirring partly because of a L'Arche Team Leaders Circle Retreat that I went on, so I'll keep it here on this blog about my "life with folks with disabilities".  That, and because this is really my "current" blog.  Of course, none of my life is really "life without folks with disabilities" - so it all counts, I suppose.

The week started with an actual Retreat day (it's actually a week of Formation/Training, but in a retreat setting).  And we started the day hearing a story read aloud to us (love!).  Sarah Thomson read us "Living Like Weasels" by Annie Dillard, author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.  I'm not sure if this story/essay/entry is in Tinker Creek, but it's by Annie.  

It starts out with lots of gory details about weasels killing other animals, one even trying to kill an eagle.  And I thought "what the hell? Why is she telling us these things?"  I do love a good gory animal story about animals being animals (for example: Mary Rose O'Reilly's graphic description of castrating rams on a commercial sheep farm in Barn at the End of the World).  However, I was a little put-off and puzzled at first with this sharing on our Retreat Day.  

By the end of the story, I got the picture.  Annie applies her first-hand encounter, learnings and musings about weasels - to vocation.  

She invites us to "live like weasels" - to get in touch with our animal selves, to follow our innermost necessity and desire.  

She describes weasels as "obedient to instinct" - they go for the jugular or base of the skull, because that's what they do.  They don't overthink, consider where in the larger picture of the food chain they exist.  They go for the jugular - period.  

She suggests that we could live like a weasel - we could, any one of us, choose to "go wild."  

I love this: "The thing is to stalk your calling in a certain skilled and supple way, to locate the most tender and live spot and plug into that pulse. This is yielding, not fighting. A weasel doesn't 'attack' anything; a weasel lives as he's meant to, yielding at every moment to the perfect freedom of single necessity."

To stalk your calling.  To yield.  Single necessity.  

"...to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you...Seize it and let it seize you up aloft even, till your eyes burn out and drop; let your musky flesh fall off in shreds, and let your very bones unhinge and scatter, loosened over fields, over fields and woods, lightly, thoughtless, from any height at all, from as high as eagles."

I'm wondering what it looks and feels like to "pay attention," to tap into "what is essential" for oneself (these were the key invitations for reflection for the day) - such that one is so in tune with one's "single necessity" and can yield to it.  What are the practices that do and will help me pay attention?  What would it look like for me to yield to single necessity, to respond to my calling with complete abandon?  

We explored some common practices of folks who pay good attention, and I explored some of my own.  As I attempt to tend to these practices, I hope to "live like a weasel."  I think I've had some pretty keen "weasel" moments already in life - I don't know how else I would have gotten here.  And I hope to let my "weasel" self lead me in each next phase.  

in atlanta now, oh jeez

So, I haven't posted since I was in Jacksonville.  My last post was in my moment of digging in for what felt like "the long haul" of 1-2 more months there in Jacksonville.  I was ready to get on to the "real" next step - why must I sit here and deal with daily life some place else, when I'm really just preparing for life in the next place?  As the words "stay with me, remain here with me, watch and pray" soaked into me, I realized that, ah, yes - this was the whole point of being called to L'Arche - to be present with people, to watch and pray.

And of course, even as I felt the angst of having to "sit still" for a couple of months - they turned out to not be so still.  I went away for a week of Exploratory Retreat, I preached at Community Night (on dirt!), I accompanied Ann at the Harbor House Community Retreat, I helped with the hiring and admission process for L'Arche Atlanta, I went on vacation with Greatfull House to Atlanta, I started taking RSVPs for a small piece of the very big L'Arche International General Assembly, I made plans for my trip to Nashville to get commissioned as a United Methodist Deacon and chat with folks in Nashville about my L'Arche experience thus far.

Um, what happened to "stay with me, remain here with me"?  Well, I feel like I did live into that call - I found peace in that phrase to sustain me in my remaining time in Jacksonville.  And even in the midst of those Harbor House and non-Harbor House activities in my last month or 2, I think I was able to remain fairly "present" to those around me.  My time there was immensely formational.  I love the core members and the assistants there.  I've since been in touch with folks, and gotten to see a few who've come up to Atlanta for the International Assembly and other trips.  I will love L'Arche Harbor House forever, it will hold a very fond place in my heart. 

And now, I've been in Atlanta for 5 months.  It feels like it's been a very long time, but sounds like so few months.  A lot has happened - namely, we've started a L'Arche community.  I'll leave it at that for now, but I'm hoping this post will re-hook me into somewhat regular posting.  Now - onto a daily check-in with Tim, some communication and documentation work, and then on to picking up core members in the afternoon.

Peace upon peace upon peace.
Jessica

head and heart always reeling

just to get a few almost-thoughts down...

a few things that i'm wanting to explore and brainstorm more...

-what does/would a truly interfaith l'arche? or community? look like?
-what would l'arche on a farm look like?
-what does/might truly nonviolent/compassionate/open/honest/clear communication look like?
-what various impulses "against" life in l'arche might mean:  ...to live in intentional community without persons with disabilities, ...to live by oneself, ...to live on a farm, ...to start something new in order to have more control - over policies, over the kitchen, etc.
-what would a l'arche-camphill hybrid look like?

what i'm doing

I'm hoping to use this blog as a forum for some personal reflection on my current and fastly approaching experiences, as well as some personal and communal discernment and dreaming about what life with persons with intellectual disabilities in Nashville could look like. 

So, I figured it would be helpful if I explain where I am currently in all of this.  Maybe some of you will already have read something like this in an email I send to the many folks I have found to be interested in my vision, but I imagine it will be good to have it here as well.

Current state of affairs:  I am jobless and homeless - joyfully and a little scarily so. 

I think I have a post from my personal blog which I'll post here explaining how the heck the notion to "start something like a L'Arche community in Nashville" took hold of me.  But suffice it to say, the idea grabbed hold of me my last year of Divinity school at Vanderbilt, and it wouldn't let go.  Initially (in September 2009), I was so convicted that the need was so great and urgent, that I was certain we needed to have everything in place by my graduation date in May 2010.  I still feel convinced of the hugeness and urgency of the need, and even more convinced of the moral, spiritual and financial support for a community here in Nashville.

However, I soon realized that:
a) completing my coursework and internship were going to require their usual "more hours than are in a day" for the remainder of the school year, leaving me enough hours only for exploration of this new idea, not concrete formation of a new not-for-profit. 
and b) it takes a long time to do something like start a faith-based residential community for persons with and without intellectual disabilities.

So, the journey from Sept. 2009 to December 2011 has looked like:
-completing my M.Div. program
-talking with lots and lots of folks who have some degree of interest and desire for a community such as what I have envisioned, including some folks from L'Arche USA, and even visiting some potential properties
-working as a Live-in Companion with 2 men with intellectual disabilities (Dean and Ronez) through a primarily state-funded, secular, not-for-profit agency in Nashville, called Progress, Inc.

In the course of my year and a half as a Companion, I experienced many trials and joys, as I transitioned out of living in community, took on primary responsibility for the day-to-day activities and welfare of 2 adults with intellectual disabilities, and sought to understand and converse with administrators of a secular not-for-profit that has spent 40 years maneuvering the state bureaucracy regarding persons with intellectual/developmental disabilities and developing a bureaucracy of its own. 

Suffice it to say, my learning curves were probably the largest and most practically oriented as I'd ever experienced.  And while these learnings were all (the good, the bad, and the ugly) of utmost value, they all made me yearn for L'Arche more deeply.  When I began, I wasn't sure how long I'd stay - maybe a couple-few years?  I quickly discerned that was absolutely not an option.  I need community, some shared faith practices, communal decision-making, shared language about who we are and why we conduct ourselves in certain ways. 

And my wandering path soon led me and my guys to a contra dance with Friends of L'Arche Atlanta.  That weekend led to an invitation and many conversations about the possibility of me joining them as a founding assistant when they would be ready to move into their house.  After a bit of discernment, I said YES!...I think that would be a good idea...and if I say yes, does that mean that you say yes?

They said, everyone's enthusiastic and thinks it would be a good idea.  But we need to make sure this is really a communal decision and that we do all the proper formal things along the way.  So we've kept stepping forward - tentatively, but with progressive certainty. 

I finally felt certain enough that I put in my notice of resignation at Progress, began the transition process with them and the guys, and moved out.  Beginning Dec. 1, I became homeless and jobless in foul swoop. 

I'm not going to lie - I freaked out a little bit a few days beforehand - what? share my things again? fit all my belongings into my car? leave the guys in someone else's hands? go without a paycheck and good insurance for awhile? hand off my plants? hand off my food processor?

But I gathered my composure, and with the help of many friends who offered good homes to many of my things, words of support, encouragement and affirmation, quality time, and places to stay in my interims (between moving out and going home for the holidays, and wrapping things up in Nashville before moving to Florida), and with assurance of a peaceful transition between me and the guys' new Companion - I got through it!

And now...I'm home in Texas, relaxed and cozy for awhile.  Then I will be back in Nashville for a week to finish goodbyes and some remaining errands.  Then I will drive to Jacksonville, FL.  So yeah - Jacksonville is not Atlanta.  Confused?  Well, the thing is - L'Arche Atlanta's move-in date is June/July 2012, and I needed to go home for Christmas (it's important.  I didn't get to do this last year - my job doesn't offer enough time off for such things.) - so I needed to quit my job before Christmas.  And - we thought it would be a good idea for me to be "trained" / "share life" / "observe" awhile in an established L'Arche community awhile before I arrive in Atlanta.

So...I will live and work in Jacksonville, FL at L'Arche Harbor House for January-May 2012. 

And then will join L'Arche Atlanta in Decatur, GA in June 2012. 

Other cool things in the works over the coming months:
-1 week of retreat/vacation in February
-2 weeks of training with L'Arche Mobile in Alabama
-1 week of commissioning interviews and receiving results in Beersheba Springs and Nashville, TN - with the Tennessee Conference Board of Ordained Ministry of the United Methodist Church
-L'Arche International Gathering in Atlanta in June!
-Hopeful UM commissioning ceremony during Annual Conference in June!