A Time to Rest

I feel the obligation to write a few words down despite the lack of time to do so.  Our founders, Suzanne and Brayton, came to their thirty-sixth wedding anniversary several days ago and only today did we have time to celebrate.  This seems to be the norm around here, to get something done today means it will get done three days from now.  We are busy and we work hard.  All of us new and experienced are balancing many ideas, events, people and tasks so much so that when we have a few moments peace we don't know what to do with it.  To catch my breath always means shirking some other responsibility.  I have barely checked my email or Americorps in days - something I had been doing hourly before.  In general the days are so busy that we cannot help but get along with one another and find reason to smile and laugh through it all. We all realize that this will be over in just a few weeks and then we will have the graces of time and solitude.

The task of relating the essence of our time here can only be summed up with our general response to the colleges we have been visiting, which is, you have to be here to understand.  This is not a place where the poor come or the hungry.  Only on occasion do the troubled stop by and in general it is professors, bishops, writers and the elite who find their way down the dark and narrow road.  Yes, people in their darkest or most pressured moments have had their spirit eased by the Shanleys and their community but this is not what overwhelms the idea behind this homestead.  This is a place for me - for us.  We are weak and weary not from the work alone but from the changes being made to our hearts.  Non-violence and anarchy are topics and beliefs held by all of us but in general these are not the reasons we have come.  We come from backgrounds of education and elitism, rich lifestyles and solitude - what we are seeking is not to be the better man or woman, but to be humbled by the undereducated and lowly, impoverished and lonely.  Solidarity is on our minds.  We laugh at the people who don't understand why we have come and what this place is.  But the joke is always on us.  So we go out into the world and remember what it is like to smell the public transportation and greasy food.  It does not turn us off but it does make us miss our home in the woods.