Hello folks,
It seems my timing to wait about a month between each entry. Thanks as always for your patience, friendship, and just bein' in my life!
Today was a big day! Many things that I've been kicking around in my head and heart trying to process through meditation, etc. have found some kind of resolution today. Background info: At work, one of the core members hasn't gone to work in a month. This is tricky because we're understaffed and typically during the day I do things like get groceries and cook dinner (which is much easier before folks come home and often walk off with various ingredients, which sometimes later end up clogging the toilet-ie-marshmallows, bread, etc). Recently at work times have been tough by the scheduling realities of a core member housebound and thus an assistant housebound as well. It is pretty darn obvious to the staff that this core member is depressed, as she now doesn't get out of be until 2 and cries with ever increasing frequency. Take this situation and add to it a few random small first aid emergencies that involve a core member on blood thinners and a fair amount of blood, and you can see the recipe is there for a stressed out staff. Add in a comments from other core members like "bite her, she needs it!" (referring to me as I was trying to help a core member stop touch a pan that was too hot) and also "We hate you and you're not a part of L'Arche".... when I hear these things for a few hours each week it is easy for it to build up. But today, some things began to break through...
In the morning we held a small prayer group of assistants wanting to conjure up in themselves love, patience, forgiveness, and empathy for core members who are having an especially difficult time lately. (which, by the way, is what my understanding of prayer is-a sort of ethical alchemy to happen in the person praying, rather than a session of begging for desires). We spent time trying to live people's stories... one core member was institutionalized since birth and just now is meeting family who doesn't express a lot of interest in integrating him into their lives.... another core member at the age of 5 was dropped off at a convent to be cared for by the nuns, 50 years later his family came back and picked him up, only to take him to L'Arche... another core member's father and sister passed away and in moving to L'Arche she is experiencing a delayed adolescence by fumbling through power struggles and the reality that she is no longer her mother's everything (and she's expected to be an "adult"--and who's been able to accept that one easily? not me!)... another core member's mother suffered a breakdown after she had a miscarriage due to a flu she got from her son, and he carries this blame and disapproval on top of severe autism which makes the world unbearably overstimulating... and it's easy to see here that there is much reason for stress, for pain, and challenge.
L'Arche is hard because you get to see your insides on other people's outsides... and you have to be gentle, but it might take about everything you've got to accept in others what you struggle to accept in yourself (it has for me!). The core member who struggles for control to the point of running out into the street to shut truck bed flaps because he can't stand them being down begs me to be understanding of the begging my own heart does in seeking control of my life. The core member who is depressed and not going to work challenges me to accept my own time scale for healing, as well as accept the time scales of others.... and the truth at the end of the day is that the core members just make you more human (to put it in Jean Vanier terms), because you realize their struggles are yours too, and that we've all got to live together regardless.
Also in my life right now, two of my Seattle friendships are becoming more real in that they've recently been expanded to include the reflection element that I find oh-so-helpful in learning who I'm tryin' to be. I'm really grateful for this! (even though it's tough).
I usually take the bus to work and bring my bike on the bus (on the rack of course) and then ride home. I do this because at 6:30am when I leave I don't believe that I (or city drivers) am awake enough to share the road. I now go in late on Thursdays (leaving the house at 7:30 instead!) so I rode to work for the first time recently. I realized that this whole time (six months!) that I've been in Seattle I've been a wus. I've been riding home from work, like it's some accomplishment, when really it's mostly downhill. I realized the ride to work is mostly uphill! I feel like this is metaphorical of where I am in my LVC year... only now am I ready to ride uphill.... at work, at home, and in my friendships... and literally... only now am I in decent enough bikin' shape that I can make it up those hills (although, I'll be honest I do still get off and walk some of them!). I'm grateful for uphill bike rides and other uphill adventures in life. They're good for ya.
Another thing I've realized lately is that the pollyanna side of me is gradually leaving.... I think most folks who know my heart know that it has certainly been a bit rosy (and by that I mean overly so, and unrealistic at times). Living in the city has been hard as issues of race, class, and crime have been more in my face than ever before. As I learn more about these I learn that it doesn't always work out rosy... and I can't fix it... at times I get really sad about all of it, but mostly I'm grateful that I am learning.
....so that said I'm doing well. My new year's resolutions (which I've been trying out for the month of January and these three felt worthy)
....drumroll!....
1. Start a recipe/quote box, so that I start keeping both in places I can access them.
2. Visit a park or have an outdoor adventure at least once weekly. (and thus start loving the city, by recognizing what beauty it has)
3. At least once a day be a source of grateful presence, and recognize in this life that there is much to be grateful about right under my nose. (this resolution is a bit of a shortened version of my mantra from a few years back: choose love. share joy. be here. live today. start now.)

...so there they are, please help me be accountable to them!

the grateful list:
-prayer
-honest conversations with friends, heart sharing
-letters
-the people who I feel like are in my life like one of those stackable compartment dolls, they are in my layers so deeply that they are me, and I them
-packages (sending and receiving)
-music
-Brian Webb's song "Not a confession" with the lines
"and here's a woman
with a poor man
his smell
is more than I'd like to bare
but she kisses him
and she holds him
with admiration, I just go home
so why is her kindness
so surprising
when its what she was created to be"
-empathy
-clean water to drink
-the bus rides that are my cultural education
-this city
-my very own room!
-my sleepin' bag
-the sun that peeks through every few weeks
-the 14 houseplants who share my room
-the bike that keeps on workin'
-the play I'm going to tonight about community building to face sexism and racism
-my future that is unfolding as I dream up what to do next...
-this year in LVC
-the uphill bike ride