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.
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