Anniversary
Today we celebrated Tuuliki's four year anniversary in L'Arche. Tuuliki is House Leader of Rainbow House. She came to L'Arche aged 20 from Estonia and has been House Leader for just less than two years. Shes an outstanding House Leader, friendly, very welcoming, good fun and deeply committed to everyone who lives in the house. She is for me the main reason why Rainbow House has remained such a happy and contented place to live for all of my time here.
I was chatting recently with a friend who was reflecting on his recent birthday - he said he tended to be the kind of person who would find himself looking forward rather than backwards, on what he would be rather than where he had come from. He could never understand those who loved to reminisce, nostalgic for the past.
Anniversaries in L'Arche are important times in the life of a community. They're markers, some would say 'sign', of continuity, of the steady passing of years, but also an acknowledgement of distance travelled and of a step along a journey. For most people (other than my friend), anniversaries I guess are a chance to look backwards, at the journey you've taken, the decisions you've made, your accomplishments, your failures. But anniversaries in the context of community go beyond simply a personal experience, either of looking back or planning forwards.
I joined L'Arche a few months after Tuuliki had become House Leader. Over the time, Tuuliki has seen me fall in love with L'Arche, has seen me change from someone determined to make L'Arche look like something I'd have built, into being hopefully becoming a little more L'Arche-shaped myself. Similarly, I've seen Tuuliki grow confident and become outstanding in her leadership. Someone able to preserve the spirit of the house whilst becoming someone willing to make decisions...to a person I consider to be a friend and a leader. My experience of Tuuliki's anniversary is only one of ten others in the house, fifty others in the community and hundreds more who've passed through the community at different times; and her anniversary means something to me as a 'sign' - of faithful commitment to friendships with core members and assistants, of continuity of relationship and of huge growth, as a woman, as a house community and as a relationship.
So today we celebrate Tuuliki's anniversary, with all its nostalgia and journey begun, all its implications for the future. In true L'Arche spirit, the Anniversary is neither about the past, nor the future; it is a moment in the present, the today - the cake we eat, the tea we drink, the card we make and the hugs we give -so today we celebrate her presence, her belonging to us and our belonging with her. Happy anniversary Tuuliki!
I was chatting recently with a friend who was reflecting on his recent birthday - he said he tended to be the kind of person who would find himself looking forward rather than backwards, on what he would be rather than where he had come from. He could never understand those who loved to reminisce, nostalgic for the past.
Anniversaries in L'Arche are important times in the life of a community. They're markers, some would say 'sign', of continuity, of the steady passing of years, but also an acknowledgement of distance travelled and of a step along a journey. For most people (other than my friend), anniversaries I guess are a chance to look backwards, at the journey you've taken, the decisions you've made, your accomplishments, your failures. But anniversaries in the context of community go beyond simply a personal experience, either of looking back or planning forwards.
I joined L'Arche a few months after Tuuliki had become House Leader. Over the time, Tuuliki has seen me fall in love with L'Arche, has seen me change from someone determined to make L'Arche look like something I'd have built, into being hopefully becoming a little more L'Arche-shaped myself. Similarly, I've seen Tuuliki grow confident and become outstanding in her leadership. Someone able to preserve the spirit of the house whilst becoming someone willing to make decisions...to a person I consider to be a friend and a leader. My experience of Tuuliki's anniversary is only one of ten others in the house, fifty others in the community and hundreds more who've passed through the community at different times; and her anniversary means something to me as a 'sign' - of faithful commitment to friendships with core members and assistants, of continuity of relationship and of huge growth, as a woman, as a house community and as a relationship.
So today we celebrate Tuuliki's anniversary, with all its nostalgia and journey begun, all its implications for the future. In true L'Arche spirit, the Anniversary is neither about the past, nor the future; it is a moment in the present, the today - the cake we eat, the tea we drink, the card we make and the hugs we give -so today we celebrate her presence, her belonging to us and our belonging with her. Happy anniversary Tuuliki!
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