Intentional Community
I have encountered many different communities throughout my relatively short life. It always looks different, though there are some consistencies across the board. Community is really hard. It is hard to live with people. Period. More importantly, community is really beautiful. In addition to the community we all experience by attending Wesley Theological Seminary, I have the privilege of living in the Birch Intentional Community at Wesley Downtown. Intentional community is a pretty broad term - it can mean a lot of different things. There are intentional farming communities, intentional service communities, monasteries, communes, and a plethora of others. Different intentional communities have different shared rules and ways of living. Rest assured that Birch Intentional Community is far less intense than some of the types of communities. We basically operate as a family unit of adults. We are all students at Wesley at various points in our journeys here. We spend time at the beginning of each school year drafting a covenant which we use as our standard of living. The covenant gives us an opportunity to name what kind of community we want to be and how we expect to grow in our relationships with each other. We share some meals together, and we have weekly meetings which we use as a space to check-in and be together. We have weekly chores, we share the laundry and kitchen space, and most of all, we know how to have a lot of fun. I continue to choose living in intentional community because I believe that choosing to put intentionality in our relationships gives us the framework to be more Christ-like in the rest of the world. And yet, if you do not live in intentional community, it is hard to grasp what it really feels like. I hope this might help: Community is cooking new things together, which is always exciting, but... does not always go according to plan. Community is showing up at the airport with an obnoxious sign to greet (and embarrass) someone who was out of town for less than 48 hours. Community is listening and sharing stories. Community is radical hospitality that welcomes friends and family of other community members as if they were your own. Community is holding space for pain and grief when someone is heartbroken. Community is finding ways to compromise the way we organize the kitchen utensils, especially the whisks.
Community is remembering not to take ourselves too seriously. Community is always making more room around the table. Community is knowing what someone needs when they are at a breaking point, which might mean that you email a professor on their behalf. Community is celebrating birthdays when it is not actually anyone’s birthday because you may not be in the same city when the day actually comes.
Community is apologizing for the ways your words may have hurt someone even when you didn’t mean for them to.
Community is rejoicing together. Community is using our collective voice to stand up to injustice and oppression in whatever way they may present themselves.
Community is learning together, in school and in life, about our own selves and each other.
Community is Dutch Blitz, until that gets too heated and you have to take a break.
Community is celebrating the differences in our stories.
Community is refusing to “other” someone because they think differently than you do.
It is because of my experience in intentional community that I am able to be myself proudly and unapologetically. So, to Shelly, Sean, Julie, Jared, Nicole, and Olivia: thank you for being part of my community. Y’all make life really really great.
 |
| Ellie Crain is a seminarian at Wesley and President-elect of the Student Council. |
Comments
Post a Comment