Notes From the Past Few Days

September 13^th

Today has been the first time we begin a full week of work here, and if this start is any sign of things to come we will be alright.  Something about waking up at the crack of dawn on a Monday morning, pulling your clothes on with half shut eyes and stumbling downstairs to sit slightly chilled and solemn in a room full of windows to the paradise outside, makes the worries of all things slip away without notice.   We do not drive an hour to work with disdain for our boss and co-workers, even our work itself.  No, we are getting to know one another in an environment that is secure and revolutionary.  This is something to be proud of, not to shrink from or call names.   Our readings for this morning’s reflection spoke of worth, how when we are loved and in community it doesn’t matter what we deserve it only matters that we are worth being loved.  This place gives me a sensation of worth that has been missing for some time.  Partly, this has to do with having something to work for, because at the end of the day you can relax and read or talk to one another without the feeling of guilt.  But the philosophies that overwhelm Agape give the work a unique flavor.  This was, in part, what the founding members of our constitution pled for.  In these several acres I am not a United States citizen.  Instead I am forced to be a citizen of the people and of an idea.  The people are the ones we use for help, who provide us with local produce, entertainment, advice and manpower.  The idea is that we return all of this back with a mind for peace.  I have not yet reached a wish to stay here for a longer time than my nine month commitment.  I am too stained with crowded streets and premade food.  I will try to make it out of here, maybe to Boston, maybe to Providence about once a month.  I feel I should be stronger and resist the ‘other’ world but I don’t want to change too quickly for my own good.  The words of my friend sway in my mind as a mantra – see through the eyes of people; love them; allow them to love you.  Maybe that’s my ultimate goal.  Regardless, things are great for the moment and that’s all that ever matters.  I might as well know I will be happy forever.

P.S.  Eating tofu for the first time tonight. We’ll see how it goes…

September 13^th (evening)

Dinner was an experience worth remembering.  Tomorrow morning our tour guide and confidant, Kyle, will be leaving us for the real world, so Brayton lit candles around the dinner table in Irish celebration of his time on the farm.  As the five of us ate what has so far been the best and most fulfilling (yes, even the tofu) meal we listened in daze as Brayton told us about the better days of Boston and New York.  The meal came to a close and I just had to relate how the meal affected me on an emotional level.  The whole experience of eating in a country cabin-style house with vegetables we picked just outside the door with candle flame for light was more than surreal – we had in a sense eaten our meal in a museum, but the knowledge that it was real was special to the new interns.  Even Brayton in his plaid shirt fit the mood to a tee.  Afterward we prayed, sang and meditated in the candle light of the chapel.  For once I could sit in silence and let my mind take me to places a good book could never touch.  The lyrics to McCartney’s Mother Nature’s Son came to my mind so I would like to share:

Mother Nature’s Son

Born a poor young country boy, Mother Nature’s son

All day long I’m sitting, singing songs for everyone

Set beside a mountain stream, see her water’s rise

Listen to the pretty sound of music as she flies

Find me in my field of grass, Mother Nature’s son

Swaying daisies sing a lazy song beneath the son

September 14^th

It’s difficult to say anything about my days here without leaning on fact or emotion too much.  For me this experience is radical because I am here living it, with all its quarks and logic, but all I can express is my emotional response to what happens and hope you can feel it too.    Ellen, our third and final long-term intern for this fall/winter/spring drove in this evening in time for dinner and evening prayer.  Of all the business in the back of our minds the one most striking to me is looking at a stranger and knowing you have committed nearly a year to them – not just as a roommate or workmate or friend but all the above.  Instant reactions say the three of us will be good for one another.  Along the way many already plan on coming and going, so this week of gaining and losing new faces will be the norm through much of the winter.  I am secretly afraid of many things, one of them being a fear of relating to the other interns, but as long as I am okay now it doesn’t matter.  As for the aforementioned facts…  I started to relearn how to drive a stick shift on an old volts wagon this afternoon.  Brayton sat beside me and reminded me how it all goes together.  By the end of the week I’ll have it down and be of use to the community in a way I can’t be now.  In exchange for the lesson I showed Brayton how to use his computer/word processor, a task I thought I’d never have to perform, but it’s good to know I am able to return benefit for benefit in some degree.  Tomorrow Suzanne, Nathan and I will be gone all day traveling to various colleges in Massachusetts.  It will be a lesson for us both in how to promote the cause of Agape.  Every piece of responsibility drives me further into the community but taunts the ghost in the back of my mind.  I cannot flee from here – though I do not want to – but knowing my restrictions instinctively sets my mind to wonder.  I wonder if a month or two will change this reaction.  I trust my time here to change me in the right direction.  I want to find my answers here and I want to find them now while I’m still young and have many possibilities.  Only time will tell and these days the time passes quicker and quicker.

September 15^th

I’ll keep this short again as there is little time to spend on the internet, and really little time spend on electricity in general.  I should start with saying that the community is becoming more and more reliant on one another and more forward with our inward thoughts.  Now that Ellen is here as the third musketeer of long term internship we all can settle into each other with a greater sense of community and trust.  I am in danger of saying that I am happy and content already and quite afraid that I might enjoy this along the way.  Only the first week will have past by tomorrow night and we have all been indoctrinated deeply in our habits and work.  Morning prayer will be a flawless system by next week, as will the gardening and various other work.  I even have been learning stick shift (hopefully this weekend I’ll be trusted with city roads).  Today’s experience has been quite different, however, from the norm of farming and clerical work.  Suzanne, co-founder to Agape with Brayton, Nathan and I drove to the outskirts of Boston to speak with two groups.  Our first destination was the Shrine to the Holy Mother of Salette, a community devoted to the apparition of Mary in Salette, France.  Suzanne spoke for an hour about breaking the idols of militarism and promoting not only peace but our October 9^th event on Women and War.  Two women in particular spoke out on their distaste of the issues but Suzanne showed her pacifist nature with flying colors and gave me something to think about in my responses and love for people who disagree with my stand on many life philosophies.  We said goodbye to Father Sullivan who asked us to come and headed to Stone Hill College, a part of the Congregation of Holy Cross, which is the same community that built my college back in South Bend.  It was nice to see the familiar crests and the AVE CRUX SPES UNICA posted along the campus.  There we met students that I grew to envy and admire within only a few hours of conversation.  The services and action committees they are a part of make my small commitment to peace and the environment seem lazy.  These connections I hope to advance.  Someday I might enlist their help or vice versa.  It is their actions that I will go to bed with on this particular day.  I have heard enough about Gandhi and Mother Theresa, the hands and voices of the youth in Massachusetts just might restore my faith in people.  These are the dangers I speak of.  I look forward to working my with our new intern tomorrow as Nathan and I spent the whole day away.  Perhaps I should list who I am among at some point, but people are coming and going regularly, so perhaps I’ll just speak of the long-term help and those local to the area.  I’ll do my best to stop boring you all with the regularity of the house and work.  Only unique or new things, maybe an anecdote here and there if I find it entertaining enough.