Guests and Hosts

This Wednesday (today, at the time of this writing) is my first two-day break away from Arahata. I think I need it. My personality conflict with Carly has taken on new dimensions and it will definitely only get worse before it gets better. Also, we had our first “Desert Day” (a day of meeting and spiritual formation for assistants) this morning. There, we received three very bad articles of news. One, our newest core member is leaving the L’arche community here, as he has been returned to his parents care. A few days ago, with his first crisis fully abated, he again started flipping tables, hitting people, and be generally violent and aggressive. The way Michele tells it, she didn’t want to call the police because the cold vacancy of a jail cell doesn’t do much for a person with disabilities. Instead, Michele called the parents. It's certain now, unfortunately, that L'Arche is not going to be a good fit for this core member. He'll need better circumstances than we can provide. We're all very sad about that. He and his flatmate, (who is now just a total wreck), are receiving a lot of prayer this week. Another core member was so frightened by one incident that he actually jumped out of his bedroom window, injuring his arm in the process.

Then we were told that L’arche Kapiti is still running a huge budget deficit, so they’ll be giving up the house at Waikanae, which was being held as a place for assistants to go during their days off. It’s generally mandated that assistants have to spend their Sabbath days away from their work houses. With the Waikanae house gone, we haven’t many options left to fulfill that mandate. I’ve come all the way out to Ngatiawa, but more on that later.

The final bit of news is that, because of the aforementioned budgetary concerns, our room and board fee will be increased, which is frustrating to say the least. While it is true that assistants get very cheap room and board in L’arche, it works out be about as expensive as living with 4 or 5 other flatmates under “normal” circumstances, but we have that same number of roommates anyway, since we have to care for disabled people. The practical upshot of this is that I get to sleep in what is essentially a closet in my workplace, while paying comparable living expenses as those who do not pursue such career moves and while losing the ability to host guests and friends for dinners and overnights. A brief synopsis: “Welcome to New Zealand. Here’s your place of both work and residency. You get the smallest room (actually, an old foyer). And, hey, your room and board just went up. Sorry, mate.” Brenda, my fellow assistant, phrased it well when she said that she wouldn’t leave L’arche just because the rates whet up, as we all really do love our jobs, but that the insult hurts just a bit. At any rate, L’arche here is sustainable until August, thanks to a large gift of charity from someone who remains anonymous to me. The way the folks down at the office are viewing this is that, by charging a bit more, they can afford to keep all the assistants on instead of firing one person. Keeping assistants on is necessary for welcoming core members. It’s all a big catch-22, since losing assistants means losing the ability to do the mission of L’arche. Hey, man. I’m just rolling with the punches. Sweet as.

EDIT (1/5/10): The conversation regarding room and board is ongoing and, at the time of this edit, it looks as though L'arche Kapiti will be financially viable for a long time. Whew!

It’s strange that I came here to “flesh out” the ideal of vulnerable communion. While I have been working on that concept, I’ve more recently discovered another concept of study while I’ve been here: hospitality. In addition to my “theology of vulnerability,” I was also studying the nature of Christian hospitality just before I left (Yes, it was in a class with Dan Deffenbaugh) and I’ve encountered it here in some interesting ways. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, but I’m currently writing this from the one-room theological library of an intentional Christian community called Ngatiawa (“na-tee-a-wa”) about a half-hour north of Waikanae ("why-can-i"). This little library, which looks like Dr. McCarthy’s office back in Hastings-both in terms of its title selections and size-actually includes (yes!) a bed. What’s more, it even comes with fresh sheets. I’m not sure why it’s here, but it’s a pretty good statement about the hospitality of this place. Up here in the mountains, their water is taken from the river, their milk is fresh from the cow, their children can usually be found barefoot, and there’s a lot of knitting going on. (P.S. See the underground art movement of “knit-tagging.”) Ngatiawa celebrates morning and evening prayer daily and on Mondays and Thursdays everyone eats together in this huge dining hall. I feel very welcome here, to say the least. The evening tea is hot and the company comes without one single television set.

I mentioned this in my thesis presentation, but I think that the precursor to any intentional encounter with Other is hospitality. That is, we prepare ourselves for the Guest (German etymology: “stranger” or “enemy”) and then, without knowing exactly when, Ethical encounter happens. I’ve spent a lot of time in my first week here trying to be hospitable toward others, waiting for Ethics to strike me in the face, to wound and change me. But it’s nice to get away for a time and have Sabbath in a place that was designed to welcome me as well. This is the kind of place that Sabrina Miller would totally get a kick out of. (Sabrina, if you’re reading this, consider coming to NZ instead of Mexico. There will be fewer old folks and pollutants.) Before I left, my deacon, Betsy Bennett, gave me a copy of the Book of Common Prayer as it is printed for New Zealand (with its many Māori translations and prayers). Since the folks at Ngatiawa are technically Anglican, they use this book every day for morning and evening prayers, so I get a chance to use my latest text in what looks like an amazing feat of hospitality. (Oh. Let me just pull out my New Zealand edition of the Book of Common Prayer here. *wink*)

The big revelation that I had while doing my final thesis is that Forgiveness (and, indeed, all of Ethics) is not a one-way street. Forgiveness and hospitality are ethical in that they create new consciousness and new being. I do the dishes and the laundry and I clean the house and I do puzzles and watch movies and prepare meals and read books with core members, all in the name of hospitality. I often forget, however, that Arahata was their house, is their house, long before it was mine. In that way, they have been hospitable to me, even before I stepped foot in the door. This particular L’arche community was founded by Father Rod, who actually charges the core members with a mission. He tells them that their job is to instruct as assistants in the ways of this community while we’re here. At the end of this time then, it is the core members who send us out, commissioned to speak to the larger world. I find this so surreal. I’m being evangelized, even as I work. There are a lot of parallels here with Benedictine monasticism. I have been welcomed at the front door as a guest, as if I were Christ himself, and now it is as if I were working as a monastic probate, doing the menial tasks of the community in exchange for the opportunity to undertake a mission from God; a mission of worship. “Ora et labora” truly beings and ends with hospitality, with vulnerability. Though I have come to serve the poor on this “ark,” I find that, in many ways, I am being served. I have come to welcome the Other, but find that I am being welcomed.