It is in these sidewalk cracks that dandelions break forth, a sign of the life that thrives below the surface. A sign that the God’s promised Kingdom, Jesus’ coming, is growing in our lives and in our world.
"Messy but whole" by Waetie Sanaa Kumahia
I planned my move without any hesitation. Now, my initial reason for moving to this location was a very superficial, of course, but thank goodness God always finds a way to work miracles out of whatever we offer her to work with. In my case, I was thrown into my first experience with an intentional community—although no one there would have used that phrasing.
"Until we are all redeemed" by Paddy Cavanaugh
In the Jewish and Christian traditions, the story of Jonah is a popular one. It is often told to us as children because it’s so charming and relatable– there’s action in the storm, humor in Jonah’s preposterous predicament of being swallowed by a giant sea creature, and ultimately forgiveness and redemption for all involved, including the Ninevites who hear God’s words through Jonah and turn away from their wickedness.
"Surprises happen all the time" Arrington's November Letter
God spoke loudly to me this past Saturday afternoon. I sat, with my five-year old daughter, on the edge of our 8 x 8 raised garden putting it to bed for the winter. The clearing of yellow and brown leaves revealed six, hidden plants with long green shoots lying flat against the dirt. Surprised and delighted to find a mini harvest just when we thought there was no more, we gathered the bunches of long leaves like ponytails and Vaeh proudly cut the last of the arugula.
"Things that heal the world" by Lacresha Johnson
My experience with Life Together is intertwined in my life daily. In my role as a case manager for Boston Healthcare for the Homeless and in my home living with my roommates. Life Together taught me the importance of community, communication, compassion, and seeing God in everyone you meet. I work with some of the most amazing and challenging people I have ever met. I try to make every client I work with feel like they are apart of my community. Life Together has given me the strength and the patience to see past people's initial hesitancy to trust someone they don't know. I currently live with two of my roommates from the Life Together house I lived in and we still use some of our old house rules. We have weekly house dinners and meetings to keep connected.
Recovering NonViolence - October Training Report
On the third Friday of October 2015, beloved Orientation trainer Jerry Koch Gonzalez returned to share another day of training and practice in Nonviolent Communication with Life Together fellows and staff. The day opened with small group meditations on emotional needs and the ways in which those needs impact our lives. Those meditations grounded large and small group sessions and activities to help articulate the four components of nonviolent communication: observations, feelings, needs, and requests. The morning session closed with the group observing a modelling of the nonviolent communication process with two fellows processing a real shared experience.
"You can't plan intentional community" by Madison Clark
Esperanza fellows began their work at the beginning of July. I moved my belongings into the house, stumbled through a few mornings of orientation at school, and spent the month-long summer session trying to sort through the hilarious challenge that is teaching middle school girls. I was well aware of our plans for intentional community but, in my head, they were always in the intangible future: "after Life Together orientation," "once the full school year begins," or even "anytime but tonight." For me, it felt like this looming goal that I really did want to accomplish, but just kept pushing back.
"I am Thirsty" by Elizabeth Marshall
This past weekend, I was blessed with the opportunity to be sent on a contemplative prayer retreat in New Hampshire. On Friday afternoon when I was packing my bag to go, I wasn’t feeling too blessed about it though. I was feeling slightly resentful about the fact that I was being highly encouraged to go on a retreat when I had spent the majority of the three weeks before retreating in my bed and getting over mono. I felt that the time would be much better spent working my way through my long to-do list of items that I needed to catch up on in order to relieve some of the anxiety of feeling behind.
"Take heart, get up, he is calling you" by Mia Benjamin
A couple of months ago I attended a training in Roxbury and in the first small group session, we were invited to identify a situation in the world breaks our hearts. People mentioned racism, education inequality, loneliness. We were then prompted recall the name of someone we knew who was deeply affected by this issue and to write it on a small candle before us. As we shared our stories around the circle and lit the candles one by one, I found my grief sharpen and refocus. My sorrow was no longer about giant, fearsome, anonymous problems to be analyzed and solved, but people’s very real lives. In that moment, surrounded by flickering candles and unspoken prayers, my overwhelming despair crystallized into a new sense of urgency, an urgency of determined hope.
"Celebrating the small wins" by Caroline Hunter
One saying I learned in the Life Together program has been echoing through my head this fall, six years after I started my year at 40 Prescott Street: "Your calling is to work where your greatest desire and the world's deepest need intersect."
Even as an employee at a 70,000-strong technology corporation, and as an MBA student a little halfway past done with my degree, this phrase speaks urgently to me. I have not figured out what I want to do with my life. Sometimes the world's tragedies still seem so many - war, racism, sexual violence, mental illness, hunger, lack of upward mobility, political gridlock - that I question what my desire and prayers for peace can ever accomplish. Yes, I want to be a person whose faith draws her to righteous, loving action. But when I'm running back and forth between a high tech office during the day and income statements at night, that kind of action admittedly feels unreachable.
Life Together Alumni Offerings as of October 2015
Retreat opportunities (local):
Registration for the retreat at Hallelujah Farms on Oct 23-25 is closed, but we're going a second time this year, on Feb. 26 - 28th. Registration for the February retreat isn't open yet, but please mark your calendars and keep your eyes peeled (on the LT newsletter and through the alumni listserv) for when registration opens.
"The disruption I've been waiting for" by Yuris Martinez
Yuris Martinez is a first-year Esperanza teaching fellow living in intentional community in Lawrence, MA. She serves as a teaching assistant at the independent, tuition-free Esperanza Academy for middle-school-age girls from low-income backgrounds.
When a caterpillar anchors itself on a twig and forms into a chrysalis, does it know what is coming? Does it know that it will never experience the world in the same way? Does it know it will feel the sun on its body again?
When the caterpillar has finally found a way to survive and make order of this world, what calls into existence a disruption so uninvited?
Witnessing orientation by the Rev. Nancy Gossling
"God's cry to open our ears" by Will Harron
Will Harron serves as an Emmaus Fellow at St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Dorchester. On September 6, clergy and parishioners in many different denominations all across the US preached and prayed about racial reconciliation in solidarity with the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Below is a excerpt from his sermon, the full version is available in audio here.
My Time as a Novice Organizer by Justin Rose
Justin is an outgoing Emmaus Fellow and works at Massachusetts Senior Action Council.
Dim fluorescent lights fill the hallway with a strange glow. Clipboard in hand, I pass doors with crude decorations: stained stickers pleading “Support Our Troops,” little bundles of ribbons and flowers, and, my personal favorite, “Merry Christmas” flags and wreaths (it’s September). It’s the first time I’ve set foot in elderly public housing. I make my way to the end of the hall, where I will begin knocking on doors and slowly working my way back to the central elevator. The goal: the tenant opens the door, takes my information, and pledges to vote in the upcoming statewide election (turnout in local and statewide elections is typically dismal). My complete lack of confidence and preparedness is astounding.
Rest in Restlessness by Rebecca Behizadeh
Rebecca Behizadeh is beginning her third year with Life Together this August as Director of Hiring and Development.
At my 30th birthday party, I was jobless, homeless, partnerless. I celebrated with friends at Le’s in Harvard Square - my entree was $12, and I was incredibly relieved when they paid the bill...
"Laundry Love" by Tori Laskey
Tori is a South Coast fellow serving at Grace Episcopal Church in New Bedford.
I almost want to say it was a series of accidents that got me to where I am today: a Life Together fellow working on the South Coast with Grace Episcopal Church, New Bedford. I started my undergraduate career at Wellesley College, and then found myself graduating from Indiana University two years later. I grew up Roman Catholic, and then found myself being received into the Episcopal Church last spring. I was planning to serve abroad this year, but I found myself in the Life Together – South Coast program. And, finally, I was supposed to be serving at a different site placement this year, but now find myself as the intern at Grace. I could not imagine a better place for me! All of these things I originally perceived as accidents, mistakes, or missteps, but looking back on how they have all fit together in the narrative of my life, I see that all of them were necessary for me to find myself where I am now.
"Lifelong conversion" by Zach Maher
Zach is a Micah Fellow serving at the Harvard Episcopal Chaplaincy.
"God uses this ongoing conversion process to make us who we were created to be, one conversion at a time On an individual level, this can mean many different things – switching from resentment from forgiveness, switching from viewing rivals as competition to companions, owning up to implicit racism and sexism that very few of us avoid internalizing to some degree – and maybe even coming to new understandings of God... "
"I am really here" by Mia Benjamin
Mia is a Micah Fellow serving at Grace Church Medford.
"Yes, Jesus comes back. But not permanently, not to fulfill whatever revolutionary dreams the disciples had for him, and not even to erase his death. He comes with a dual purpose. He comes and binds himself to this broken world and its people yet again. He comes and shows us not a way out of grief and disappointment, but a way through..."
"Seeking reconciliation" by Will Harron
Will is a Micah Fellow serving at St. Mary's Dorchester. The following is from a sermon he preached on March 22, 2015.
"Whenever we stand before God and confess our sins - the things that keep us from God's will of Love - whenever we admit our faults of thought, word, and deed, whether out loud, in writing, in the quietness of our heart in prayer - whenever we admit these things, and ask for pardon and the strength to do better, we receive that love. We receive freely and we ought to receive joyfully. Whenever we pray the Our Father, asking to have our trespasses forgiven, we are given the daily bread of forgiveness, that nourishes us to forgive our trespassers, to love them, and to build the Body of Christ with them..."