It’s September again, with another Life Together cohort beginning a year of community life and site placement work. For me, there is something comforting in the rhythm of our year– even in the midst of the uncertainty wrought by an ongoing pandemic, fellows still arrive in Boston, full of excitement for this new adventure and openness to all that the year holds.
Their arrival reminds me that for all our American notions of time as a linear march into the future, our experience of time is often cyclical. Summer fades into fall, then hardens into winter before life bursts forth again in spring. Year after year, the Christian liturgical calendar takes us through the central stories of the faith, from waiting for Jesus’ birth in Advent to the Holy Week journey through his death and resurrection. Each of these cycles offers the opportunity to learn something new, or revisit something the season has already taught us. The time is the same, yet different.
After a year in which most of our training and formation activities took place online, this year’s Orientation felt like a return to familiar milestones. A fully vaccinated cohort allowed us to meet in-person, while wearing masks indoors in accordance with guidelines from the Diocese of Massachusetts. Once again we prayed together daily and stumbled through our first attempts at public narrative. Perhaps most powerfully, the Co-Creation Dinner returned this year as an actual dinner, with a small group of pre-registered guests joining us on the lawn in front of our new home in Dorchester for spring rolls and kebab skewers prepared by a rock star food team. As we circled up for worship, I felt overwhelming gratitude— for this group of young adults who said “yes” to transformation, for the community whose steadfast support has sustained us through this challenging season, for a God who is always doing a new thing for us to perceive.
Yet much has changed as well. After 20 years in the training room at 40 Prescott Street, we were nomads this year. We held trainings in four different locations over eight days, and that doesn’t even count visits to site placements and a field trip to Boston’s King’s Chapel. And our cohort is smaller than in previous years, with six fellows living in one community house. We are trying new formats in the training space out of necessity, reflecting the needs of a very different group in different circumstances than in years past. And as we move into the program year, we’re more deeply asking questions about generational changes among our cohorts: how are we called to build Gen Z leadership?
I believe that Life Together, with its culture of learning and experimentation, is well-equipped to navigate these changes. But to do this learning, we will need your help! Stay tuned throughout the fall for opportunities to offer your thoughts on this cycle in Life Together’s organizational life. This includes our triennial Alumni Survey, which we hope you’ll fill out when that becomes available later in the fall. Because regardless of the season, it is the engagement of this community that makes possible all that we do.