I love walking into the kitchen and seeing one of my housemates perched on the counter with a bowl of cereal or propped against the table drying a dish. I love it even more when I can tell there's a thought brewing inside like some coffee pot for me to dive into and pour myself a hot cup.
Conversation! Is there anything so... useful? ...or effective?
This is how many of our more important or meaningful conversations have started: moseying into the kitchen and stumbling upon someone's percolating thoughts. It's one of my favorite things about living with people: different people.
Yes, we've all come from this area: grown up together, attended the same church and yes three of us have even grown up in the same household and have the same gene pool swimming around in the codes of our characters. Even so, there are a thousand tiny ways we are different and a thousand big ways too. Zack for instance has a strong discipline that inspires all kinds of task-mastering in the house. Just yesterday I came home to realize that the dining room table I'd meant to glance over and tidy had been totally cleaned and with it the floors, the counter, and the living room clutter. This is one of the thousand tiny ways Zack and I are different.
To offer another example, Annie and I are active socialize-ers. We almost never turn down an invitation to enjoy a late night drive to visit a friend or even simply to enjoy each others' company. Just the other night we heard a rumor there might be a late-night meteor shower so we ignored the late hour, hopped in the car and headed to the nearest all-night gas station we could think of to buy ourselves some cheap coffee for the star-show. We completely forgot to look at the sky but we enjoyed each others' late-night company and over-sugared coffee beverages until night had become early morning. Similarly, Kevin overheard of an opportunity to see a movie in New York City, and on a whim he joined a group of movie-goers in their day-long drive to see the 2 and a half hour movie. This is one of the thousands of tiny ways the Millers of our house are unlike us.
These differences became obvious even before we spent any time together and now they surely have us all thinking, "How much harder would this be if we hadn't come from such similar places? If we feel so obviously different with each other...how much more so will a future collection of people feel?"
We haven't figured it all out, but one of the true-est things I can say at this point is this: one of the most basically necessary skills for meeting with and learning from people of difference in a way that shares in growth...is conversation. We have all embraced the need for conversation and let me tell you...it is the only way to go about community. What blessings we've found in it.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Thursday, May 6, 2010
service
WEll, we've had two intentional "electricity-free" nights, and one thunder-storm induced one. The whole house has really been enjoying these nights and the fellowship time that happens naturally when there are only a few sources of light in a three story house. After a while the little glowing cluster of candles in the middle of us feels more like a campfire than a supplement for electric lights.
Yesterday while the evening light was still coming through the window and we could still see eachothers' faces, we brainstormed together about service-project possibilities. We talked over all kinds of ideas, but for this month in particular, there's one kind of bizarre idea that Annie had that stuck out to all of us. I must admit, to those maintaining a very traditional idea of what "service projects" are, it may not fit very comfortably into the category. But perhaps there are some categorical walls to be dismantled here. We know only a few things after all, don't we? We want to be part of this little place called Millersburg: this little collection of people and the streets and sidewalks they build their lives in. We know that. We don't want to be strangers keeping to ourselves. We want to be woven into the town enough so, that the needs of the community start to become known personally... The distance fades.
The service project idea may not fit the traditional idea of "service project," but I think it fits pretty nicely into the idea of becoming present in this town. Our idea is simple: On some Thursday night before summer vacation, we would like to fill the back part of the parking lot where kids wait for their parents after school with games/mazes/pictures etc in sidewalk chalk. We'll have to cooperate with the weather on this, but the idea is to have a parking lot of little activities waiting for the elementary students as they leave school on Friday and wait for their parents to fetch them. If kids catch on and play, we'll join them!
Now, we want to be present in this community in all kinds of ways. I think this could be a really fun way to try to get a foot in the door, so to speak, but we've got our eyes open and our ears to the town around us. We want to be neighbors to the people here. We want to know the community well enough to know their need: to share in and feel their need in fact. We'd love any more ideas about how to do that.
Yesterday while the evening light was still coming through the window and we could still see eachothers' faces, we brainstormed together about service-project possibilities. We talked over all kinds of ideas, but for this month in particular, there's one kind of bizarre idea that Annie had that stuck out to all of us. I must admit, to those maintaining a very traditional idea of what "service projects" are, it may not fit very comfortably into the category. But perhaps there are some categorical walls to be dismantled here. We know only a few things after all, don't we? We want to be part of this little place called Millersburg: this little collection of people and the streets and sidewalks they build their lives in. We know that. We don't want to be strangers keeping to ourselves. We want to be woven into the town enough so, that the needs of the community start to become known personally... The distance fades.
The service project idea may not fit the traditional idea of "service project," but I think it fits pretty nicely into the idea of becoming present in this town. Our idea is simple: On some Thursday night before summer vacation, we would like to fill the back part of the parking lot where kids wait for their parents after school with games/mazes/pictures etc in sidewalk chalk. We'll have to cooperate with the weather on this, but the idea is to have a parking lot of little activities waiting for the elementary students as they leave school on Friday and wait for their parents to fetch them. If kids catch on and play, we'll join them!
Now, we want to be present in this community in all kinds of ways. I think this could be a really fun way to try to get a foot in the door, so to speak, but we've got our eyes open and our ears to the town around us. We want to be neighbors to the people here. We want to know the community well enough to know their need: to share in and feel their need in fact. We'd love any more ideas about how to do that.
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