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The God of washing up

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It is with great sadness that I have to announce that, in all likelihood, by the end of the financial year, Faith House will have a dishwasher. Over the years, first Cana and more recently Rainbow have succumbed. It seems inevitable that Faith House is only a few months away. Over the years, I’ve fought a losing battle against dishwashers - their clean silver lines, polishes surfaces and promises of beautifully clean crockery have beguiles and seduced all corners of the community. Jean Vanier often writes that the dinner table is at the centre of the community – the place where all are equal, where all have a place and where time can be ‘wasted’ in the company and service of others. Jean Vanier never washed up in Rainbow. My happiest memories and most complete experiences of community life in Rainbow are focused not around the dining table, but around the washing-up bowl. As a washer-upper often described as vigorous and enthusiastic if perhaps lacking some of the finer...
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Tea and community

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Laurie is an assistant in Cana house in Eythorne. Here, she reflects on the role of tea in L'Arche, community and world peace:  "A lot can be said about a cup of tea. Since coming to England in May from Canada , I have shared more cups of tea then at any other time in my life. I am learning a lot about the power of a cup of tea. Tea brings people together. It calms, soothes and provides comfort at the end of a day and    provides a consistent, warming start to each morning (though personally    i still need to drink at least 2 cups of coffee to get going in the morning!). When everything else seems unclear, there is a profound kind of certainty that can be found in a cup of tea. I know that no matter how many mistakes I have made in the day, no matter how tired or distracted I am, if I put a tea bag in a cup and add hot water, it   will   become a tasty beverage!  Beyond the comfort and ordinariness of tea, I have also discovered that tea h...
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If a tree falls in a forest...

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Question: If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it…. does it make a noise? do the other trees point and laugh? does anyone care? I met a friend recently that I hadn't seen for a while. For me, she's always been this bubbly, talkative, slightly forgetful figure in my life. Yet she continually describes herself as shy, slightly awkward and a little quiet at times. We said goodbye and I returned to Rainbow house for supper. But on the way home I was left wondering – what is she? Is she quiet just because she says she is? Or is my experience of her what really counts – if people think you’re outgoing, are you outgoing, despite what you think of yourself? Are you an introvert because Myers Briggs tells you that you are? Who is your real you? I’ve never really got to an answer to the question; neither I guess have the psychological, philosophical and theological community so I don’t feel too stupid. Isaac Newton’s third law of Motion states...
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The God of small things

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Whilst she was in the Faith House garden, Gillian sat and watched a spider at work in his web. The spider had built a web which stretched diagonally all the way from the side of the house to a bush, six foot from the wall. The web was a single strand of cobweb and in the middle of the strand, the spider was busy building his net of cobwebs into a structure. Gillian commented: ‘How can people say there is no God?’ Whether you like spiders or not, you have to admire their ingenuity. Wherever you walk in Autumn, you see cobwebs spanning the most improbable places – I have a spider that daily builds a cobweb over the wing mirror of my car, only for the web to be blown away every day on the way to Little Ewell. The spider’s willingness to exploit every opportunity can be good metaphor for us. Spiders have faith and persevere: Cobwebs gather every week in the corner of your house, only to be swept away every week in your weekly clean, yet the s...
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Christmas and change

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When I was little, one of the worst times for me was Christmas Day morning, just before opening a stocking full of presents. The anticipation of Christmas had built and built through November and December, school had ended for Christmas, Christmas shopping had been finished, as a family we’d done our ritual family-visiting on Christmas eve, Midnight Mass was over and now here I was, staring at my Christmas Stocking and knowing it would be 365 days before I’d wake up to find another one at the bottom of my bed. A couple of weeks ago, we said goodbye to Sebastien, an assistant in the house who returned to France and welcomed a new assistant, Jeremiah from Canada, to Rainbow. Community living is always a time of goodbyes and hellos – some assistants and core members have been members of the community for twenty or thirty years – Peter has been a member for 33 years – my age today! Others come and go in less than a year. Changes in Rainbow are always a slightly anxious time in the house – ...
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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 ...
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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 ma...
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