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!
Tuesday, 13 November 2007
Friday, 9 November 2007
Routines
Tomorrow, I'm helping in Rainbow house. I work Monday to Friday as Assistant Coordinator but the house is low on assistants (Lisa is on holiday and we have a vacancy to be filled next week) so I'm helping out in the morning. Its been 6 weeks since I helped Pete and Damien in the morning and went out shopping with people from the house. I'm really looking forward to it. I'm guessing if I go with Damien, we'll head off into Canterbury, balloons, postcards, leaflets from Whitefriars Shopping Centre and finish with McDonalds. I'm not psychic - its been a similar routine most Saturdays since I arrived 20 months ago.
Routine...we use the word in L'Arche a lot. Morning and evening routines are the things that core members do to go to bed or get up in the morning. Assistants are asked not to vary them too much so that the core member feels in control of whats happening, knows whats next. For Damien, routines seem to mean something a little more.
Damien is a young man, 24. Hes great fun, likes doing fun things like McDonalds, zoos, sailing, horse riding. But its strange, he seems to get quite apprehensive over NEW potentially fun things. Offer him the cinema with as much popcorn and coke as he can carry, or a postcard and he'll go for a postcard every time.
I'm the opposite - routines for me mean I stop thinking, stop being aware of time passing. If I find a routine, I DO feel secure (I still drive to my office the same way as on my first day even though I know theres a shortcut) but my brain feels redundant. I stop noticing the countryside, stop thinking about the day, my mind wanders off.
Damien has a box on top of his wardrobe - its an old shoe box that someone decorated with wrapping paper - pictures of mad spiders and happy worms, that kind of thing. Its where he keeps the postcards that he buys, that we then write together each evening. Its sort of his diary box. Every night, though particularly when hes tired, Damien will end up staring at this box, at the mad spiders. When hes stared for a while, he'll start to count them, showing me each spider. He looks delighted by them and really keen that you see them too. So I wonder if Damien is the fortunate one in this life with routines. He notices things I miss - the different details of the same object remain fascinating to him even though hes totally familiar with them. The same details continue to bring enjoyment even though hes shared them with me a hundred times.
In L'Arche, beyond the morning and evening routines, every week, every day is in some ways a routine. On weekdays, after everyone is up, had breakfast, made their packed lunch, climbed on the minibus, the assistants start their cleaning routines - the same floors, the same toilets, the endless washing up, the never ending hoovering. Its all routine. Yet, you ask any assistant - I mean ANY - what makes life special in L'Arche and they'll all tell you -its their recognition, their appreciation of each moment in each day. Time doesn't pass idly. In some way, the routines with all their familiarity, bring enjoyment and recognition of the importance of moments that are passing.
Damien I think is on to something.
Routine...we use the word in L'Arche a lot. Morning and evening routines are the things that core members do to go to bed or get up in the morning. Assistants are asked not to vary them too much so that the core member feels in control of whats happening, knows whats next. For Damien, routines seem to mean something a little more.
Damien is a young man, 24. Hes great fun, likes doing fun things like McDonalds, zoos, sailing, horse riding. But its strange, he seems to get quite apprehensive over NEW potentially fun things. Offer him the cinema with as much popcorn and coke as he can carry, or a postcard and he'll go for a postcard every time.
I'm the opposite - routines for me mean I stop thinking, stop being aware of time passing. If I find a routine, I DO feel secure (I still drive to my office the same way as on my first day even though I know theres a shortcut) but my brain feels redundant. I stop noticing the countryside, stop thinking about the day, my mind wanders off.
Damien has a box on top of his wardrobe - its an old shoe box that someone decorated with wrapping paper - pictures of mad spiders and happy worms, that kind of thing. Its where he keeps the postcards that he buys, that we then write together each evening. Its sort of his diary box. Every night, though particularly when hes tired, Damien will end up staring at this box, at the mad spiders. When hes stared for a while, he'll start to count them, showing me each spider. He looks delighted by them and really keen that you see them too. So I wonder if Damien is the fortunate one in this life with routines. He notices things I miss - the different details of the same object remain fascinating to him even though hes totally familiar with them. The same details continue to bring enjoyment even though hes shared them with me a hundred times.
In L'Arche, beyond the morning and evening routines, every week, every day is in some ways a routine. On weekdays, after everyone is up, had breakfast, made their packed lunch, climbed on the minibus, the assistants start their cleaning routines - the same floors, the same toilets, the endless washing up, the never ending hoovering. Its all routine. Yet, you ask any assistant - I mean ANY - what makes life special in L'Arche and they'll all tell you -its their recognition, their appreciation of each moment in each day. Time doesn't pass idly. In some way, the routines with all their familiarity, bring enjoyment and recognition of the importance of moments that are passing.
Damien I think is on to something.
Welcome
Welcome to a blog of life in the L'Arche Kent Community. Life in a L'Arche Community is in many ways inseperable from life more generally, so I apologise now if my blog overspills. But maybe it should. No man is an island etc., and that goes double for communities. Apart from Island communities I guess.
I've been in the community for about 20 months now. In some ways, like the Army, I was born into it - my brother used to live in Little Ewell house in Barfrestone (Kent) 17 years ago and my sister was in the L'Arche Bognor community about 10 years ago. Like the Army, my time also taught me to peel potatoes - lots of potatoes! As a house assistant in an international house you quickly learn to cook for many and potatoes are the United Nations of international cooking. Unlike the Army, I also learned to rattle a tambourine, bake a cake and blow up balloons. But more of that later.
Welcome anyway. I'm not entirely sure how to write this blog, so I guess I'll just focus on what happens today, yesterday and tomorrow and try to make sense of it as I can. Feedback always welcome, so long as you're kind.
I've been in the community for about 20 months now. In some ways, like the Army, I was born into it - my brother used to live in Little Ewell house in Barfrestone (Kent) 17 years ago and my sister was in the L'Arche Bognor community about 10 years ago. Like the Army, my time also taught me to peel potatoes - lots of potatoes! As a house assistant in an international house you quickly learn to cook for many and potatoes are the United Nations of international cooking. Unlike the Army, I also learned to rattle a tambourine, bake a cake and blow up balloons. But more of that later.
Welcome anyway. I'm not entirely sure how to write this blog, so I guess I'll just focus on what happens today, yesterday and tomorrow and try to make sense of it as I can. Feedback always welcome, so long as you're kind.
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