Sara!

I’m really grateful to have found this community. It was scary to make such a big change and move here in the same way that it’s scary to jump off a high rock into a lake. Or walk in the woods at night without a flashlight. It reminds me of a time my brother took me on a walk down our driveway. I grew up in rural Ohio, and our driveway was shrouded in trees, a long, lonely abandoned railway line. I was a teenager, and I was afraid of what wild animals lurked in the shadows, fearful of what I couldn’t see. But as we walked down the drive and back, down and back, just talking, the darkness wasn’t so scary. Fast forward ten years later, and you would at times find me running through a forest by moonlight with friends or quietly making our way down a path in darkness. Darkness becomes like a comforting cover, once my eyes adjust, and my ears are open, and my heart is finding welcome for the wildness around me.

I bring these feelings with me to this new place, and this season of darkness, and of Advent and Epiphany and winter. Even though I struggle to make time to slow down my mind, I have others around me helping hold a space for quiet and peace. We came here not knowing how everything would fall into place, but with the same hope one has as they cover a seed, expectant of growth. We are slowly working to follow the path we chose when we joined our lives together: to “practice hospitality… rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn”, to “be joyful though [we] have considered all the facts”, to “listen to carrion … and hear the faint chattering of the songs that are to come”. As we fall into step with these new rhythms, and our hands find their way to the work best fit for them, the most amazing part is that we are not alone.