My first post! (live from San Francisco)

Hey kids!

This is my first time blogging in a very long time, and my first time blogging with the intention of it actually being read by a group of people. If my entries suck then so be it.

I arrived yesterday around 5 to Oakland airport and Dale Gish picked me up. Dale is the apprenticeship coordinator for Church of the Sojourners, the commune I’m hoping to land a year-long apprenticeship with starting this August. We had some good conversation on the way to the house I’m staying at (the community is made up of 4 houses and 1 apartment that they own/rent).

I arrived and had dinner with Dale and his wife, Debbie and there two wee daughters Rebecca(4) and…umm…I don’t remember the 3 month-olds name. but she’s soooooo cute.  I 3 of this years apprentices, two young ladies about 21 or so and Colin, who’s 25th birthday is actually today. I walked into his room and saw his bookshelf- loaded with all of my favorite books. We hit it off immediately. He’s going to be a teacher of some kind i believe. He showed me that he’s been brewing his own beer for the past 4 months or so and said he could teach me if I were interested. We had some. it was AMAZING. barleywine. yum.

I went next door (to another one of the communities’ houses) for Colin’s birthday party and met some more members of the community. Some of the them were upwords of 60, some in their 40s and 50s and most about 25-30. It just felt like a huge family. We played some games and had some beer and i got to meet a lot of people.

I actually met this guy named Tim Otto who co-wrote a book called “Inhabiting the Church”  about taking a 3-fold  benedictine vow that has been really helpful and impactful on me in the past 4 month or so. He’s an elder in the commune and I ended up talking for an hour or so with him, and it was very exciting. He asked for my number and we’re supposed to grab coffee or dinner before I leave. He told me that the kinds of question that I’m asking are why they created the apprenticeship in the first place and he’d be excited to have me around. He made me feel good about taking the steps I’ve taken to be here and to go to the Koinonia Farm (where he’s actually been a few times and he loves and respects the community there very much). It was affirming.

So I come home last from the party and sleep and wake up at 630 (we have daily prayer and teaching time at 645 am) and went into the kitchen. Colin was reading at the table and i ask “is it cool if i have a banana?” I didn’t want to steal anyone’s bananas.
He just looked at me kind of funny and said “Eat whatever you want, man…it’s a commune.”
and i realized that those bananas didn’t belong to anyone, but everyone. i liked it.

I went to prayer and teaching after that (lead by Tim Otto) and had a really great discussion about the suffering of the cross and what shape that actually takes within the Church. We talked about what is and what is not “cross suffering” ask defined by John Howard Yoder.

I think i’m going to love it here.

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Tags: Christianity, community, religion