I call you Love.

I hesitantly whisper of beauty as the possibility of you.
A beauty that softens. melts.
The wind that tickles the trees and makes them shiver.
The leaves slowly dripping, catching in my hair and scarf.
The far off hills that hold me still. motionless.
The tender human touch that renders me silent.

I call you Grace.

Yet.
This is an abstraction.
A theoretical concept.
A series of ideas to be discussed and debated.
You are an abstraction.

When I am honest.

This is not my reality.
This is not personal.
Not my own.

If I am honest.

I will call you
Distant.

I would call you
Harsh Judgement.

I will call you
Silent.

I call you
Absent.

Eyes burning from heavy lids.
Kicking Television is the soundtrack.
Green and Brown window scenes.
Orange, Yellow, Red falling from trees.
Young boy practicing karate on his father.
Two men speaking to me in words I do not understand.
New wellies under my chair.
Tunnel: Black. Ears popping. Loud.
I pop out to a split world:
It's all yellows and golds on bottom as cornfields lay out a blanket on the earth.
Solid clear blue is draped on top - filling the rest of the canvas.
This is my ride from Cambridge.

Jeff Tweedy and I are trying to process.
Digest and sort all the input of the last few weeks.
Books, films, lectures, conversations...the density is making me heavy.
But there is something I am holding onto. A flashlight to see through the brush.

I am a product of my environment. "A child of my era; ironically an almost obedient child visibly following the mores of the cultural milieu in which it was nurtured." Shaped by Romanticism and the Enlightenment I am simply walking on the path laid out for me.
In this increasingly "Post-Christian" world I am not brave. My thoughts are not 'counter-culture.' I am not 'thinking outside of the box.' I am simply following suit. I am simply falling in line.

This thought. Partially and poorly represented here, was voiced to me in a book I read with love. A book I just finished written by a non-Christian man on his journey through several intentional communities.

It has thrown me off balance.
Add to my brokenness this perfectly chilling perspective and I am left flat on my back. Crying in my sleep.
It has stopped the wind from stroking my arrogant sails and yet given me some sort of irrational hope.

Train. Underground. Switch lines. Second train. Bus.
I am almost home. Almost able to begin my 40 minute walk home.
"Unlock my body and move myself to dance."
The soundtrack plays my favorite line.

I am trying. I am trying.

In an attempt to adapt to my now limited internet access, I will form this post into the shape that comes most naturally to me: a list. A skill I inherited from my mother and then perfected in emails to Chris Meagher...I am a professional and avid list maker. So, here is some insight into my life here at L'Abri in list format.

1. I live in a manor. For reals, a genuine real life manor. It's huge and open and drafty and old and beautiful. The grounds are lush and green and stretch on endlessly. They are covered with winding and narrow footpaths that wander throughout the village of Greatham. They cross through clover fields and pastures filled with cows and horses and gardens.

2. My days are delightfully structured:
8am breakfast
930am work or study
11am tea break
1pm lunch
3pm work or study
430pm tea break
630pm dinner
8pm lecture/film and discussion

3. I have consumed more tea these past couple of weeks than the sum of all of my prior tea drinking experiences combined. As a result, I am peeing more than ever.

4. I am currently in a room with 7 other girls. The majority of whom have just graduated from high school. Imagine high school Christian Camp. Now imagine, if you will, how much I would enjoy living in such circumstances. (Answer: I would not. At all).

5. I have about 3 hours of study a day. Free to study whatever I wish. With a library at my disposal. And no papers to write or grades to receive. Simply for the purpose of learning. There is a whole room designated for study. It is filled with desks and chairs, couches and blankets, and there is always a fire burning. It is pretty much bliss.

6. I have 3 hours of work a day. This consists of either cooking, cleaning, gardening (my favorite), painting, etc. This, I also love.

7. The weather here is nice. Not too cold yet. Quite pretty actually.

8. I have a tutor named Marta. She is from Hungary. She used to be a hotshot lawyer. I most definitely like her.

9. There's a boy here who asked me what music I listen to. Turns out we have similiar taste. We have taken to confessing our guilty pleasure bands. Yesterday I told him Teagan and Sarah. He looked at me blankly and said that was embarrassing. But then I reminded him that he had said One Republic, and I surely think that is worse. He reminds me of Adam Souza. We're friends.

10. Sunday nights are reserved for "High Tea." We gather in the drawing room and participate in a form of creativity together. Reading through a story or play together each acting out the different parts, spontaneously creating music with various instruments and voices, etc...From there the floor is opened to anyone who has something they would like to share -- a song, a poem, a story or whatever. I sit, observe, laugh heartidly and basically love, absolutely adore, Sunday nights.

11. This is real living in community. About 35 people of all ages, families included, living together, sharing together and constantly running into eachother. The dynamic is always changing as many people come and go, staying for a few days or a few weeks at a time. Eating, sleeping, studying, working and playing together can birth certain challenges. Some of which I'm finding to be difficult. But I think I am learning a lot about people, isolation, community, honesty, boundaries, vulnerabiltiy and independence.

12. I am currently reading: The Little Prince. The Art of Loving. Utopian Dreams. and Being Human.