Process

First, just let me say that my past few posts have been almost strictly ideological. I promise that another "pictures and update" kind of post is on the way soon to break up the monotony, but I've got a few more heady things to get out before then. Just please bear with me.

For those of you who read this blog regularly (if there are any of you left), you'll also note that the tone of this blog has changed a bit. Instead of reporting individual events and so on that happen, I'm broadening the nature of my posts and focusing more on the meaning of my time here and what it I feel it contributing to down the line; larger-picture stuff.

If this is the first time that you hear about it, then I apologize, but I've decided to extend my work visa and remain in New Zealand for another year, after May 2010, until around May of 2011. Why? Well, this decision took months of discernment, but it's all coming together in language for me now.

Basically, the scoop is that I arrived about 6 months ago, right as Michele was leaving her position as Community Leader and Alex was taking over. At that same time, our Local Council received some new members, the community was living beyond its means by holding the Te Waka house, and (in addition to all that extra stress) there was all the drama of living in a L'Arche house as it normally goes with this motley crew of assistants and core members. I came to this community just as things were coming unglued. After 5 months worth of un-gluing, there are some new fastenings being made and some new foundations are being laid. The community is going through a reformation. The cool part is that I get to be around to see it happen and be a part of it. I get to have some agency and just a bit of experimental license.

Tim Moore was here just over a year ago and, when he came back to the US, he told us all about L'Arche New Zealand and the people that he discovered here. From my conversations with him, both then and now, I get the impression that this community is totally different than it used to be...and becoming more so every day. I think that if Tim were here now, he might recognize the house, but the home would be totally foreign to him. I also get the impression that L'Arche around the world must be like that: amorphous.

Some of the more recent changes to our community include: losing Noel as an assistant because of issues with his visa and employment in L'Arche, saying farewell to Brenda as an assistant as she moves up North to live with "anarchistic Catholic Workers" on a sustainable farm there, and welcoming Tamzin into our house (Arahata) as the communities newest core member. Changes, changes, changes. Which is exactly why I'm sticking around.

Forget about studying Ethics and Theology. Those were things that I was already good at. Originally, I thought that I had come here to L'Arhce to test out my ideas and to put myself through a test of vulnerability. After 6 months, I'm finally starting to get it. I've already tested my ideas, they've been proven, which is why I'm here. They were proven the second that I walked through the door. Their proof is no longer what matters.

Alfred N. Whitehead figured that the world was a creative dialog between the Real and the Actual. He thought that things of the Real (non-physical, like ideas) would seek the fulfillment in the actual (concrete, largely physical things). I'm completely on board with that notion right about now. My ideas about Theology are practically water tight, so they no longer represent my vulnerabilities. (Though they definitely did at one time.) What's closer to the truth is that I'm now being prodded more directly as a responsible moral agent. I feel called to participate in this community and the things that I say and do affect its health. I can't afford to be quite and contemplative because I no longer have the buffer zone of abstract thought to shield me from the personalities of other people. I'm sure that this last statement is true in any sort of community, but I feel that it must be especially so in a L'arche community.

What I'm really getting an education in now is "Community Building 101" and I'm starting at the ground floor. I am now allowed the opportunity to speak in ways that hold responsibility. I'm listening to the needs of those around me and above me and connecting them all together in my mind, using models and theories and language to try to form some actual, concrete stuff like institutional structures, policies, and procedures. I'm not in a powerful position, mind you, but I do have ample opportunities to make contributions. I'm finally giving my gifts as a person to something directly present instead of just developing them as useful tools for reasoning, which is what I did in college. The last thing I'd want to do now is drop out of school and go back to working on a master's degree.

So, I'm staying here at L'Arche Kapiti for at least a little while longer because I feel as though I've started down a track here. This community is reevaluating its position in light of its values and I really need to see what happens with that. I need to give to it, even if it fails. How can these vulnerabilities form us? How shall we respond? I give and receive. I wonder and I wait. I pray.

I looked up the etymology of the word "pray" and there are some folks who claim that they can trace it back all the way to Sanskrit. In that context, as opposed to meaning, "to beg," or "to entreat," as it normally does, (You know how much I love to be edgy!) the word "pray" means, "to question." I pray now. I offer up the question to God and I await the answer to my sacrifice, to see if it is acceptable.

Progress

Alright. Well, it's been a month since I last wrote a post. Now that I've got some time, I'll crank out an update on what's been going on.

Reading: Just barely into the meat of Freedom Evolves, sort of waiting for Dennett to just get to his point.

Being House Leader: Not half bad. Once I got into the swing of things, life was alright. It's basically like being a normal Assistant, except that you have to think about more at once. House Leaders have to be conscious of functional stuff like finances and keeping the books straight, but also of the "house dynamics." That is, how everyone is interacting with each other and forming relationships. Then, at the appropriate time (usually some kind of meeting), I just bring these things to light so that they can be reflected and acted upon. Easy Peasy, right?

In alot of ways, being a house leader is better than being just an Assistant because it comes with some of the responsibilities of community-wide agency. I get to move through channels that typical Assistants can't. How's our Community Participation Service (sort of like a day-base) working? Can we plan some events around Christmas time? Could I please recommend that we get a new van? Things like that.

OK, so maybe "easy" isn't the best word for it, but the job's definitely got a rhythm. I find that if I'm unintentional about my duties and place in the community, then life becomes a serious chore, but taking the other track, being intentional about the House Leader duties makes it all very rewarding and even a little bit fun.

I've been taking some initiative and making some changes to things while Akiko's been away. It feels pretty good to make the house run in a better way. Well, a way that feels better, I guess. I bought a new safety rail for the shower last week and held a meeting with Tamzin's Mum about welcoming her into the community. It all feels a bit like the first time I rode a bike all by myself. "Look Mom, I'm responsible!" I feel much more confident now and I don't know how I'll feel when Akiko gets back to reclaim my new duties. I suppose that, in many ways, I'll feel very relieved, but I've proven to myself now that I can handle the responsibility and that feels really good.

Discerning my Vocation: The bigger project here is still in the works. After being house leader and having the experience of L'Arche, even with as short of a time as I've been here, I feel like I no longer have to be afraid of building an academic ivory tower. I feel as though I no longer run the risk of running roughshod over the life experiences of others. Well, not as much as I used to, anyway.

At the same time, I'm growing tired of being within circles of "religious" people. I don't like to put on committees for "youth ministry" or "spiritual exploration" or anything like that. Don't get me wrong, those things are probably necessary and there are people who are definitely called to those areas, but personally, I feel drained by them.

Here's what I'm thinking: As I usually do, I've been coming at things in life backwards. Instead of approaching alternative community from the angle of Religion, I think what I need (and maybe what the world needs right now, in a more general sense) is to approach Religion and belief from the angle of alternative community.

There are lots of Assistants in L'Arche and lots of community-livers who aren't religious in a personal sense and don't care to be. They haven't come to the community because of their religious beliefs and they don't really feel called to believe like those around them do. They may go to prayer, but it obviously doesn't feel the same for them. We have quite a few of these people in L'Arche. These folks come into alternative communities because there's something here that can't be found elsewhere: something transcendental. I've got a hunch and I think that the nature of Religion and belief itself is changing for us. Specifically, for this generation of people.

Now, it's fairly obvious from my historical studies of biblical narratives, that ancient peoples made no differentiation between truth and fact. In the example of the Romans, one worships the Emperor because that's what makes the Empire run, regardless of what is known or unknown about things like human psychology, sociology, or economics. The point is that having a God-Ruler figure made things work and how one worshiped determined how one lived. Truths and facts were apparently one and the same because ancient peoples would have had no need to separate the two into different experiences. All this, however, would have changed with the rise of the natural sciences, beginning during the Enlightenment period of western history. For us moderns and post-moderns, 'how' has become a different question from 'why.'

Indeed, I'll invite you all to check out Wired.com's science reporting in all it's glory. Here's a good article on how Religion works in your brain:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/10/god-brai/

It's entirely possible that religious belief, as a development of thought, only helped to "boot strap" human ingenuity and social relationships into their current state. I'd throw my bet there as well. The evidence for such a case seems pretty clear and only grows stronger as more and more information about human consciousness emerges from the fields of Neuroscience and Psychology.

However, contrary to what certain Darwinian fundamentalists would have us believe, the rise of the scientific, naturalist perspective doesn't necessarily entail the end of Religion. I think that Religion is simply mutating...evolving, if you will. I, for one, am certainly not about to give up worshiping God, even if I dislike alot of what's associated with it, and even if that's true for alot of people. The major ethical objective here is to avoid fundamentalism, both religious and naturalist. Only by first sidestepping that, can we move forward without running the risk of invalidating at least some portion of the human experience.

For those of you who understand Christian language and metaphor in the same way that I do, essentially what I'm saying is that alternative communities, regardless of their religious affiliations or "beliefs" are the new Body of Christ. Look at it this way, in the words of Henri Nouwen: Jesus "did not offer an ideology, but Himself" (from The Wounded Healer). It doesn't particularly matter what you think "about" God, because the realm of "about" and the term itself is now subject to scientific inquiry. The realm of causation, of the "about" as such, is now the subject of a new sort of prophecy for us: The Natural Sciences.

I say prophecy in the same sense as it is meant by Walter Brueggemann. That is, the natural sciences function for us as a way to speak against the status-quo. They allow us to ask new questions and old ones in new ways. In that capacity, the sciences help to tear down the walls of what Brueggemann calls, "The Royal Consciousness" through the phenomenon of "discovery." The Sciences themselves, however, are only allowed to touch matters of the factual. They can only tell us things about stuff as it happens. They only offer us information and they are subject to the kind of formative questions that we ask. In order to say, "Look, things aren't like we thought that they were." We must first have a set of things that we "think" or "believe."

Religion and spirituality, by contrast to the sciences, open the door for formation and formative experience. I don't speak that as a function of Religion, but rather as a way to identify the phenomenon which we commonly call Religion. Let's cut to chase. Here's the plain-language version: Anytime during which a person is offered an opportunity to transcend what he or she already "knows" or believes, this we may call a "spiritual" experience. If said spiritual experience finds grounding in a specific practice or ritual, this we may call "Religion."

So basically, all of these folks who come to places like L'Arche without being "believers" as such, are having spiritual formations. Their experiences are valid in terms of Ethics. They are discovering a kind of spirituality and, perhaps, creating new "religions." They come because it's different here. They come because there's something weird here; something else. They come because they have been provoked; called forward by some Other.

Now, for those of you who are Christians (and for those of you nervous about the idea of letting go of your God), I would say that you ought not fear the loss of Tradition or Scripture. Instead, try to focus on the self-giving example of Jesus in the Gospels. Offer it up to God, offer it all up, even that which you think you know. Offer up not only the beliefs of the world, but also belief itself. If God is fundamentally creative and if Jesus dwells with creation and if the Holy Spirit moves through creation, then what have we to fear of an evolving tradition. We should be more afraid of preventing God from acting creatively in the world than we should be of acting unwisely. If the evolution of Religion itself can be the saving arms of Christ, if it can turn the world upside down and move it toward the Kingdom of God, then to that I say, "Why not."

In my time at L'Arche, as I explore Ethics and the Other and Religion, I posit everyday that God is vulnerable and that this very characteristic of God's mutability; God's creativity, is the very same which offers us Salvation and, indeed, the salvation of the world. I think then that our tradition ought to reflect this. The Gospels ought to feel imperiled by everyone and everything, for when God comes to the world, God risks it all.

I do have much more to say on this topic as I work it out further, but you're sure to hear more of that as it unfolds. For now, I must be content with this rambling as it is, publish it, and go to cook dinner.

House and Home

Alright, so last Wednesday I began my duties as acting house leader for Arahata. The move of one core member, Peter, and three assistants, Rachel, Elias, and Noel, out of Te Waka is more-or-less complete. Peter has been moved to Rangimarie house along with Elias and Noel and Julie (from Rangimarie) has come down to live with us along with Rachel who's moved from Te Waka. Additionally, a new assistant will be with us for a period of one month. She's from the organization "Challenge 2000" and her name is Julia. It's a full house. I feel really surprised that Arahata can actually sleep seven to eight people, but hey, it works. Everybody has ample space and only two people have to share a bedroom.

There are moments when the house feels very homey to me, like during dinner. Everyone is around the table and it feels like I've finally found a full and vibrant place to live in. We have the same number of core members and assistants as before Te Waka was released, but we're all consolidated into two houses now, so everything feels more closely knit. Rangimarie is only a 10-minute walk and I can see Peter every day of the week now, if I wish. It still seems like a shame to have to release one whole house, but overall this is going pretty well. I think that the community should have made this move sooner than we did.

But, these new arrangements have their downsides as well. Tensions run higher with new people in the house and routines get upset. I don't think I could have picked a much worse time to become house leader. In addition to the added responsibility of tracking things like the house finances, I now also have to start rebuilding relationships with core members and assistants. In some cases, like with Julie and Julia, this must be done from scratch, as they're completely new to me. Assisting Julie is going to be especially challenging, but I have to keep in mind that all of this change is at least as difficult for her as it is for me and everyone else in the house. I've dedicated pretty much the past week to just getting to know Julie and Julia better and figuring out how to properly assist Julie. It's the weekend now, so things are pretty low-key, but tonight's our house meeting and tomorrow is Monday again.

As a house leader, things are looking...er...OK for me, actually (at the moment anyway). I've got things under alot more control than I thought I would. When Akiko was here, she stressed basically one thing: "making a nice house." I'm learning alot to delegate tasks to people who are either more called or more qualified than I am, which takes alot of stress off me and helps the house to feel more integrated. Everyone should have a place and a calling and, basically, it's the house leader's job to empower that idea, but it's not as hard as I thought it was. It's not so hard because, in order for a house to be a house, everyone has to have their own sense of ownership anyway. Without that, there's no house, only the enacted will of a few people, represented as a house. They say that love makes a house a home, but I have a much more technical understanding of that statement now than I ever did before.

I'm also learning to separate my own feelings from other people's feelings. If someone's upset, then there's no reason that I have to be. On the other hand, I'm not at liberty to ignore that person either. I find that, in university, I had two sorts of mental experiences: thoughts and feelings, but that I had them separately. In L'Arche, I'm gaining a whole new level of meta-cognitive awareness. I have thoughts about my feelings and feelings about my thoughts and I have these experiences quite regularly.

I think about Ethics as the day goes on and my thoughts cause me to have feelings because the once purely abstract statements and stances I hold now have actual and positive connections to my community. For instance: the intellectually disabled shouldn't be forced to work for pennies on the dollar at menial "sweat shop" jobs, but... government regulations against such things also rob alot of disabled people of their chance to feel productive and socially involved. If an employer has to pay a legally established threshold, then the disabled will either have to work very hard at "normal" jobs, or they have no work at all. Here in NZ, we can't set up a traditional L'Arche workshop precisely because of such legal "protections." It's my messy, complicated feeling about a once-clean and upright thought.

At the same time and on the other hand, I feel frustrated and angry sometimes, either about something or at someone. In community, I can't let these emotions run away by themselves because the consequences could be very drastic. In order to keep the community together we need to stay calm and act: together, decisively, committed, and intelligently. So, when I have a feeling, there's a mental check in that happens: Why do I feel this way, exactly? The answer to this question give me some very well-connected and stable thoughts about all my messy feelings. Jean Vanier says that L'Arche is built on pain, which is true, but much of that is simply the pain of self-awareness. Living in community definitely holds a mirror up to oneself.

One last thing before I head off: Last Thursday was Jean Vanier's birthday. He's now a man of 81 years. This dude's vision has come a long way since the 60s, undergoing a whole lot of change and mutation. I, for one, signed his birthday card from our community with thanks and gladness. I'm very proud to be a part of this organization and I hope that it's made the world better place, even if I can't stay here forever.