Sleepless nights

During the three weeks we spent in Chicago, our sabbatical was restful. We focused on enjoying community life and learning how it works. Now that we are staying with my parents, it seems that the weight of our responsibility for the church is upon me again. I feel like now is the time for us to work on dreaming and planning.

Last night I was agitated and stressed. Elaine didn’t seem ready to do this work and I was feeling the stress of it. I mused and fumed, dared to dream and abandoned all hope in turn. I remembered, before we left, how I recognized that it would take faith to leave the church in God’s hands. Last night I was worrying again that there might not be a church to come back to. I remembered prayer times at The Nidge. There was a sandy pot where one could leave a candle burning. I wished I had that available to me – to leave my need and prayer before God in a tangible way and put my care back in God’s hands. It was about two in the morning when I found a solution. I turned the light on in the bathroom and left that light burning as a prayer before God. Understand I know my prayer is always before God, but tonight I needed a way to walk away, leaving it there before God.

Even after the stress left me, I still couldn’t sleep. Other projects came to mind. I began redesigning a spinner ring, planning the custom pieces I would need machined. I pondered how to create an automatic bell to chime for times of prayer that would also be kinetic art. Wherever I turned, my brain wouldn’t let me sleep.

Living in Community

I am starting to get a sense of the joys of living in community as well as the work involved. My favorite feature of community so far is evening prayer, especially when followed by a community meal. This is where living together for the sake growing in Christ really shines.

Today I made porcupine meatballs. I made one batch in our normal way and tried another batch as a vegetarian dish using black beans. Apparently the rice I used was not of the par-boiled variety so they wound up kind of crunchy.  But the real joy was sitting together at a picnic table by the street curb enjoying the meal together even as the rest of the neighborhood passed by, seeing the clouds reflect the setting sun and the fireflies joining us to entertain the kids. It is an idyllic life.

It is also a lot of work. I can see already how difficult it can be to keep channels of communication open. It has been especially difficult with the intense heat this week, we spent the last couple evenings in our air conditioned room rather than chatting. Last night we had a wonderful reading of the first half of Othello, but I was strangely withdrawn not even daring to read.  It will be interesting to see how the next weeks play out and if what binds me loosens its grip.  I think three weeks may be just about right.  One is over too fast, like a vacation.  Two is comfortable. By three we ought to have gotten to the real work of living in community under a spiritual rule.