As the Spring finally graces us at the Deaconess Anne House, we decide to hold our Monday Night Eucharist outside. Despite the challenges of a wayward wind, we appreciated how the sanctity of the service carried over outside the confines of a church building.
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Old North is a small neighborhood, but a very storied place. In the short time we've been living here, bits and bobs of our community have stood out to us. Some places are historic, some are saddening, but all are part of the unique character of the neighborhood.
As per of the tradition of the house, we hosted a Stations of the Cross tour of Old North for Good Friday. Each one of us selected two different locations, and prepared a reflection touching on the history and meaning of the location. This is in tradition with the fourteen traditional stations, all of them recounting the harrowing march, and eventual death, of Christ to the cross. We are people of the Resurrection, and the Stations of the Cross is a powerful way to name the places of death and hope around us.
(Previously published as Post 14 for #LentwithESC: http://episcopalservicecorps.org/lentwithesc-rhaynes/)
By Rosemary Haynes I don’t want to make living in community sound terrible because that is the farthest from the truth. Saying that it is perfect is also farthest from the truth. Intentional community is difficult. I like to picture it as a winding country road, with each opposite side being the perfection and the worst. There are times that I want nothing but to live with my housemates forever. A sense of security comes with living under one roof with others who are there for similar reasons. The moments that are spent together bring joy and laughter and overall a feeling of acceptance in the Christian world. The opposite though, is the moment when you feel alone in the midst of seven people. It is easy to distance yourself from the group because being together all the time is difficult and draining. Coming into this yearlong program with the Deaconess Anne House, I didn’t fully realize what was expected of me. I was moving across the Mississippi, into a part of the United States that I’ve never stepped foot into before, with other young adults who seemed to have the same (or close to) beliefs and values I did. At first it was the same as making new friends and spending every waking moment together, because of course there would be zero conflict. I gained clarity on conflict in community within months. Conflict in an intentional community is almost essential to the growth process. Learning how to deal with that conflict is dependent on the group dynamic. Deaconess Anne House has it’s own unique way of coming to agreements and understandings of one’s values. During our weekly chapter meeting we say our thanksgivings and our grievances. This doesn’t solve all problems but it allows us as a community to talk about our conflict in a way that isn’t pointed directly at a house member. One of the boundaries I had to learn was understanding that being housemates does not necessarily mean being best friends. This has been a struggle since the beginning and I am only now realizing that building intimate relationships with seven people is difficult and sometimes impossible within a year’s time. My time at Deaconess Anne House has not been the easiest but it has been the most rewarding 5 months I have experienced. I have grown in ways that I did not believe possible because of the encouragement I receive from my housemates and my community!
By Brendan Jones O'Connor, 2014-2015 Corps member I am a dialectician. I don't generally mention this on the first date, but I perceive the world as a series of opposing ideas interacting in opposition, and eventual reconciliation, with each other. For me to process my experience and plan for the future, I need to bounce ideas, observations, and insights off another person, or work through them in a notebook, for me to feel like I've gotten a handle on a reasonable position. Seldom do I think I have reached a final position. Certainty can be boring, I have found. This is why I decided to join the Deaconess Anne House; just like a bicycle, for me to be a stable person, I need to be in motion. Paradoxically, the great challenge of moving to a new city, living in an impoverished urban area with six other strangers, to work in a job field I had little experience, during the midst of an international political movement, has done wonders for my well-being. With no jest, I can say that I am happier now than any time since my senior year of high school. A little background on me, I grew up in Waukesha, Wisconsin, a conservative hotbed fifteen miles west of Milwaukee, and attended the University of Wisconsin in Madison, the great Berkeley of the Midwest. Continuing my theme of taking contrasting ideas and making them work together, I spent my college years in a tiny, residential Episcopal ministry while studying in a colossal, very secular school. I loved the contradiction, as it helped me re-frame the Christian experience as a commitment to justice, reconciliation, and community living. At the same time, Madison experienced the biggest round of protests and demonstrations in State history against the anti-union policies of the state governor. The conservatism of my home parish and my high school met a formidable challenge in the prophetic witness of Madison's faith communities. I knew something had changed within me when I realized that the salvation Jesus preached, that the apostles followed until death, and that the saints devoted their lives to, is something very real and achievable in this life. Deaconess Anne House promised me something I needed, a community dedicated to both social justice, and intentional life together. After two years past my graduation of failed situations and emotional fatigue, I wanted more than anything to be part of a supportive group, willing to do the hard work of bringing the Kingdom of God into the world, including ourselves. Especially ourselves. My job placement at Christ Church Cathedral as the digital missioner (social media outreach position) has challenged me to take social media very seriously as a way of fostering community. My housemates have allowed me to notice strengths and weaknesses I did not realize I have. For example, I'm a better listener than I knew, but I'm not especially playful or competitive. Living in a co-operative, co-ed house has taught me patience, as we hold weekly meetings to evaluate what is working, and what does not. We constantly watch ourselves to avoid triangulation and other toxic behavior patterns that destroy communities. Still, it's never easy most difficult for me has been accepting that I will not be close friends with everybody in the house. And that's all right, we are here to love and support each other, but we are not required to be drinking buddies. This is hard work, and yet it is fulfilling work, especially as I see my home life and my work life as working together for the same mission this year. I want to emphasize to anybody considering applying for the Deaconess Anne House, or a similar program, that living with a unified purpose is a profound experience to hold for a year, especially in the formative time of one's twenties. St. Louis itself is a city of contradictions, which was one of the reasons I choose to move here: A city whose design and cultural identity is rooted in a World Fair 111 years ago; a city named after a violent, antisemitic French king, but primarily occupied by Blacks and Germans; a city of 318,000 people, and a metropolitan area of 2.9 million; the highest crime rate in the United States next to three of the 25 wealthiest suburbs; an East Coast city that happens to be on the Mississippi; the starkest street divide between rich and poor (The Delmar Divide); the largest Bosnian population outside of Bosnia & Herzegovina; the biggest companies are Monsanto, Peabody, and Anheuser-Busch; and everything, yes, everything is made out of bricks. I am so grateful for this ability to intern at Deaconess Anne House in the "Gateway to the West.” In all my confusion, in all my experience as a contradictory person, and active dialectician, the Deaconess Anne House leads me to believe in precisely one foundation: the salvific Kingdom of God. From the outside, it might not seem like much to be sure of, but I would not have it any other way. |
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