I was reading this article and figured I'd post it here since it kinda relates to community and our recent conversations.

http://catholic.org/hf/faith/story.php?id=44571

Too much alone time? You be the judge.

This is a response to Eric's post, but I figured I'd just make a new one since I don't like the formatting that blogger uses for comments.

Eric, thanks for sharing those select memories from the trip. It's so funny how the littlest things can be used to teach us all interesting life lessons, such as literally doing nothing and listening to your iPod. Hmmm.

I, too, enjoy having at least a little bit of simple "Kelsey time" each day, and on the days and weeks when I don't take very good care of myself by setting that time aside, everybody else pays the price while I try to suffer silently (which doesn't usually work because I just get cranky). It is good and well to spend time with whatever "community" you're currently a part of, but it's also just as, if not more important to make sure you take the time to yourself and don't always cover a genuine desire for alone time or silence with a facade of a good mood and a smile. If we constantly try to "fake it" and put on a smile when we're feeling really crappy, we very well may end up suffocating or just getting burned out and in the end everybody loses.

John, personally, and I obviously don't know the ins and outs of your feelings when you were not talking to anybody at dinner, it sounds like you're being a little hard on yourself (and that's coming from someone who beats herself up alllllll the time, so who am I to talk, anyway?). Shoot, not everyday is going to be a cakewalk of smiles and butterflies, and I think that's just alright. Sorry if that comes across crass, it's really not supposed to.

We recently did team evaluations where each of the four of us answered a couple of questions about the other three missionaries on the team. The category that challenged me the most was "Living Order," which essentially pertains to making time for yourself and your own personal life amongst the bazillions of things you have going on all the time. Tim (my team director) is really good at putting things into context and expressing them very well with words, and I told him that it's hard for me to take time to myself, especially in the middle of the day, because it seems selfish to do that when there are students I can meet with, barehanding (talking to random people around campus) to be done or expense reports to fill out.

He called me right out on that and said that rather than being selfish to the people I know right now I am actually being selfish to the people that the Lord desires to put into my life a few years down the road. He mentioned a shocking statistic: 98% of Youth Ministers (of course John and Sarah came instantly to mind) last 2 years on average in their ministry and after that they get burned out and never work for the Church again.

This was completely shocking! It makes total sense: we desire to help the lost sheep find their way, and when it comes to matters as important as our Faith, we desire that they know it fully and know true friendships in Christ.  We might end up pouring everything we have into just a few people for a short amount of time, but when the Lord presents new disciples to us down the road, we have already burned out and cannot give them the adequate, if any, time that they deserve in order to grow. Therefore, by taking time to ourselves we are actually doing a service to the people we don't even know yet and still allowing the Lord to work His magic through us with them.

Now I'll end this rather long post with a thought. Yes, I believe it certainly is possible to become selfish with our alone time and begin to guard it, build up walls around it and never let anybody touch it while it continues to grow and grow. But is guarding a set amount of time each day, whether 15 minutes or 2 hours, to remain sacred for you and you alone (with Jesus, of course) bad? There are both positives and negatives to a "yes" and a "no" answer, but this is definitely a common struggle--especially among us!--and by learning discipline in this an entire community can be strengthened.

Praying for all of you,
Kelsey

p.s. Perhaps we could read a book together? It's been something on my heart. I was thinking, although I'm sure many of us have read this, Mother Teresa's Come Be My Light. She understands suffering and service more than any of us and has truly lived it! Let me know your thoughts! :)

The Individual

I was going to make this just a comment to John’s post about community taking effort, but it got a little long, so here it is as a full post. I agree that community can take some serious effort, and that effort definitely should be put forth in most cases in community life. I did have a thought that there are also times when it will take effort to be an individual and/or to ALLOW others to have their space as well. Thinking of the trip, a couple moments come to mind.

One was working on a little eyebrow deally at the end of the day on Friday to make the soffit, siding and fascia to all tie together on the corner of the house. A few of us had a little brainstorming session and came up with some ideas, but with all the jobs being done, I ended doing the actual construction of the thing. The work was frustrating at times, but to tell the truth I really enjoyed solving it and I am glad that I had the opportunity to go at it alone. It was incredibly freeing to be able to go at my pace and not have to discuss everything out loud (although I can get in some pretty good arguments all by myself). Anyway, it was great to both share the work of the house, but at times be able to work or struggle on something alone for a while. I’ll leave it up to you to apply that to other aspects of life, because I don’t want to. I know you can do it.

Secondly, I think to the car ride back home. Being an introvert who had just spent a week with 4 other people almost nonstop, I was pretty ready for some serious inside my own head time. I popped in my earbuds and shut everything out. I really enjoyed being able to just sit and think, and I feel like it was fruitful. However, I realize that to the rest of the group, I seemed like I was angry or something was wrong, which I am very sorry for. To top it off, I did get frustrated when someone would ask me a question. How dare they try to interact with me while I’m thinking? So, I do think that there are times to just be alone, and perhaps even to let yourself or others be alone to their thoughts, even when you are physically close. I know that I haven’t been successful in handling this well, but there must be a place for it.

I leave you with this quote of great importance and wisdom:

To me, it's always a good idea to always carry two sacks of something when you walk around. That way, if anybody says, 'Hey, can you give me a hand?,' you can say, 'Sorry, got these sacks.’

-Jack Handey

“You don't think your way into a new kind of living. You live your way into a new kind of thinking.” - Henri Nouwen

Community takes effort

Well as you will see again, this Mini Mission Trip has had a profound impact on my life and discernment of community. Like I mentioned yesterday this Mission trip in some respects allowed us an opportunity to enter into a community together. It provided an opportunity – for us to enter into a shared life. We worked, lived, ate, played, prayed, & shared expenses. And that is a beautiful thing, which I enjoyed immensely. However I also realized that just because the opportunity for community was there in structure, it didn’t mean that I was always partaking in communal life. And on the other hand if the structure of community was not in place there would have been no communal life there for me to take part of.

Hopefully as I continue, this realization will become clearer.

Most of the week, for me was awesome and fun and I was having a good ol time with everyone. One major exception to this was Wednesday. The weather was unpleasant all day and the work proved to hard cold and dirty. I was crabby and then I was short with my friends around me. Then I was frustrated with the fact that I become crabby so easily if I am uncomfortable. I just sort of checked out from the community around me. I didn’t make eye contact with anyone and said hardly anything while we got ready for dinner and ate dinner. I just didn’t want to be there, and boy I made it obvious in my demeanor.

Later reflecting and talking with my wife, I saw how I acted was really disrespectful and uncharitable to those around me. I am sorry for how I acted, but in further reflection I came to realized something about community and about my nature.

I realized 1) That as beautiful and as contagious as community is it also takes effort and at sometimes it will take huge amounts of effort to enter into the opportunity of community that is before me. 2) I have a strong desire to be an individual and the community in structure and practice needs to allow space for individuals.

The images that came to mind are 1)Each person joining the community is a play doh person and when you join we take your lump of play doh and add it to the community play doh person so that the community becomes this one giant play doh person. 2) Each person joining the community is a person made out of the stuff that is a person and we then put up four walls and a roof around us and we call the community HOME. Whereas the house is the structure & order & traditions of the community. And the people inside are the people inside the community. This HOME we build has windows and doors for us to go in and out of and a front porch for us to invite the neighbors to hang out and the doors are unlocked and the windows uncurtained. So the HOME is tangible and something real and a part of the persons’ identity and design and yet the HOME is separate from each individual and each individual is separate from the other individuals.

In summary:

1) The Community needs to respect the individual and provide true freedom to remain persons

2) Each individual needs to put in effort and at times great effort to get outside themselves in order to enter into the communal life and benefit the entire community

And at the end of the day we all come back HOME

Community is Contagious

Communal Life. - They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers. Awe came everyone, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their property and prossessions and divide them among all according to each one's need. Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple area and to breaking bread in their homes. They ate their meals with exultation and sincerity of heart, praising God and enjoying favor with all the people. And every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

- Acts 2:42-47 -

Last week, I had an amazing time on Mission Trip with some even more amazing friends. To make it even better we were serving people and an organization that I know & love. An organization we have become friends with. On our way home we stopped in St. Louis to visit a couple of Catholic Worker houses and other similar type community houses. Was interesting and continues to challenge me and raise questions in me of the type of communal life God is calling me to. Anyway after we got back in the car, some of us got to talking about the week of service and about past mission trip experiences to Mississippi. Brother David made mention of how each year after the week of working on mission trip he told himself he would work harder at making this great feeling last longer and this life of serving more a part of his life back home. Each year he noticed he was able to do a better job. After last summer he very actively looked for areas where he could serve within his talents. He started getting somewhat involved with habitat here in Sauk. But his reflection was even though he desires to serve more and he is actually doing it more throughout the year this trip to MS always seems significantly better and more fruitful and useful. Even this most recent one the 5 of us were just rapping up. Those of us in the car that were discussing this starting trying to figure out why the mission trip was better and why it is hard to bring it back home in a sustainable way for an extended period of time.

Discussions lead to the idea that a big difference was who we were serving with. On the mission trip the 5 of us were in a community – we lived, eat, worked, played, & prayed together. We put all the costs of the trip together and split the bill. And in a fairly larger scale that is what we do on the summer mission trip. And I was like wow – this sounds and seems a lot like what the early church looked like. So it would only make sense that as verse 47 says, “praising God and enjoying favor with all the people. And every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.”

It only makes sense that this communal life when tied to service work is so much more enjoyable and attractive. David was trying to serve by himself when he got back home – which I believe is amazing and very commendable – but as we discussed in the car David can’t be the Body of Christ. He is only one part of the Body. And when we live & serve in community we have a much higher chance to become a fuller version of the Body of Christ. And let me tell you Christ is Beautiful. We all have different gifts from God and He distributes them to all of us differently, so that it forces us (or draws us) to form a communal life in order for us to become the Body of Christ.

I love Communal Life and it is true the world needs Communal life, and if we are all aiming at God it may just happen that others will also catch this contagious way to live.

From Detachment to Detachment

So Sarah & got to talking on our car ride to Madison Tuesday. Our topic of conversation seemed to be two different topics, then by the end we were both convicted by a radical (at least it is radical for the two of us because we had not thought of this idea before) idea that these two topics can be one topic.

So Topic ONE: we were talking about detachment and how God is working in us in great ways to encourage us to be more detached to our stuff; our books, clothes, food, money, car, house, toys and tools etc. This detachment in the last couple of months has taken on two models. 1) Us giving or throwing away lots of things we don’t need. 2) Freeing us up to share with others who need or want the item. This growth in detachment has cause a huge growth in our desire for community and having all things in common. Having this dream that one day I won’t see “my” stuff as mine anymore. I have felt such a freedom in this great concept of detachment.

Then Topic TWO: We started talking about work around the house. And how sometimes Blake leaves his dishes in the sink for days before cleaning them so Sarah feels strongly motivated to do all our dishes immediately after eating to not have a double standard. In the sense that if Blake leaves dishes for a day we become frustrated but if we leave the dishes for a while – well we had a good excuse or had another thing that was more urgent and we are going to get back to our dishes later - type of double standard. We also got to talking about meals and cleaning at the house in Mississippi where we stayed for our Mini Mission Trip. Feeling like Sarah & I were always leading the cooking and cleaning and no one else would lead a cleanup. If we asked most everyone would jump in and help. But it was like no one else saw the work on their own. They had to be made aware of the work to help with it. We were like this is their work too. Now to be honest, I enjoyed doing the work & enjoyed serving the group in that work. Tuesday morning Sarah was doing dishes and Blake had left a mess on the stove from when he last cooked and Blake came down and was sitting in the kitchen waiting for his ride to work. So Sarah simply asked Blake if he would want to clean up his mess on the stove. He did with no problem. Likewise we talked how it would be a good way to serve Blake by washing his dishes and show him love and mercy. He’s done nothing to deserve us doing his dishes for him but we do it anyway, because, I have done nothing to deserve salvation but Christ died anyway. I guess dishes pales in comparison.

However as we continued talking about this Topic TWO I felt the Lord nudge me back to Topic ONE. We kept using language of “our” mess & “his” mess. “my” work & “their” work. I felt God saying the better way to look at this would be to be detached from who “owns” the work you see to be done. So I don’t look in the sink and say oh there’s Blake’s dirty dishes again, well I can either let him do his work or I can be nice and do his work for him. No, I come to the sink and say, oh there are dirty dishes to be clean, I can either clean the dishes or not.

This seemed to make sense to both of us and also convict us and challenge us to think, talk, & work this way. I know this is not going to be easy to incorporate and will take constant effort and accountability from those around us. I also realized in this conversation that the Lord was already working this in my life in small ways already. The Example came to mind of the couple times I’ve visited The Apartment in Platteville & I saw a sink full of dirty dishes. I cleaned the dishes and dried and put them away. Looking back, I can honestly say I didn’t see the dishes as The Apartment’s work that I was doing for them. I just saw dirty dishes and wanted to clean them. That’s it. I didn’t think I was being nice or that they now owe me some favor in return. Praise God for starting the work of detaching me from this before I was even made aware.

Summary in Bullet form:

• Detachment of things: “my car, my house, my phone, my toys, my tools”
• Detachment of work: “my project, my job, my mess, his mess, I am doing Blake a favor by doing his dishes – this leads to sense of anger or feelings of this is not fair he owes me now and why can’t he clean up after his mess.
• Verses “hey look there is A mess on the stove. There is work over there. I feel invited to clean or to do this task I am made aware of. It is not my mess or your mess or my job or your job it is simply A job.
• - Do I have the time & skills to do the task? Then I do it.
• The radical view that nothing is ours not this house, money, car, tools, toys, body, hands, & feet – I’m just temporarily using it.

I found a great promo video for our Community!

Waiting

Howdy.

To begin I’d like to make a couple notes about where I stand in life right now. I’m still not sure what I’m called to regarding community… Truth be told I’m a little bit exhausted with the thought of it all. However, I do believe God has been revealing his plan to me regarding the work he is calling me to. Enough of that. Now here are some thoughts:

I have been thinking a lot about the time that we spend waiting for things in life. Often, I feel as though God reveals an end-goal to me, but I do not see the steps between where I am and where I need to be. Many times it even seems as though I could dive right into that call if it weren’t for the commitments I already have (school, a signed lease, etc.). Why would God give me a vision if I cannot act on it right away? To teach me patience? Do I really have to sit and wait around for the right time? This has been the cause of much anxiety for me in the past few months.

Then I thought to myself, ‘Self, there is a difference between patience and inaction.” This is not necessarily a lesson in patience, because just sitting around is not patience. God would make me wait to take a step unless there was another step before it which I haven’t taken yet. God has given me a vision that I am not yet equipped to accomplish. He is still working on me in the meantime. We should never just be waiting, but instead continuing ever forward to become the man or woman who will be ready for the great cause for which God is preparing us.

So what do I do until then? Well, I can continue to try to grow in virtue, but that’s something that I’ll never be done with as long as I live. What is the next step toward this specific goal? In the words of Derek Zoolander, “I guess I have a lot of things to ponder.”

At the end of this reflection, I suppose I have not really come to any conclusion of what you or I need to be doing… deal with it. J I pray that God will reveal to myself and to you the next step in each of our journeys as we discern and that we will not grow anxious about what the end goal is or how close or far away it may be. I pray that we may focus on where we are now and how it is transforming us for the better.

Peace b w u