The Hour

And while I'm on this community kick, last night was another really lovely picture of it.

This past weekend, Ann and Ben were in town. And they brought my dad along with them. He had the weekend off, and hitched a ride with them across Iowa. I think my dad has a bit of a man-crush on Ben. It's very cute- he's been a big fan for years. He likes Ben because Ben likes to talk sports. A lot. With three daughters and a Kevin who isn't a sports person, Dad has had a shortage of people to talk sports with for many years. Ben has fulfilled a big need in his life. But I digress...

Last night, before they left town, we attended an event called "The Hour" at St. Wenceslaus Catholic Church. Ann's sister Teresa and her family attend this parish, and the priest that's been there for some time, Father Francis, is a regular hippie. He's young, energetic, has a bushy beard, and plays guitar. As I understand it, he started this monthly worship service called "The Hour" some time ago, and it's something that has reinvigorated the church, in particular the faith of Teresa's young family. Ann knew that "The Hour" was going to be this weekend, and talked my dad into letting them stick around for it. She invited us along, because since my dad is Catholic, she thought this would be a nice experience we could all share together across denominational lines.

And it was beautiful. In all my years growing up half-Catholic, attending a Catholic college, and attending mass with a lot of Catholic friends, I have never felt so energized and encouraged in a Catholic church. Father Francis and his band rocked out to over an hour of contemporary worship music, much of which we sing at Candlewood. The sanctuary was full, with a lot of young people, and I really could see that God is at work in this congregation. Everyone was singing along, clapping, dancing, raising their hands and shouting "God is good- all the time!"

It was a refreshing time. This past week or so I've felt weighted down by a lot of really stupid things that I've said and done. It's been a struggle to work through forgiving myself and accepting God's grace. But for that hour last night, the burden of my sin was far from my mind as I joined this community in worship.

Our group took up the whole pew, and it was such a blessing to look down the line and see Ann's niece, Emily, who's 10, and her nephew Andrew, who's 7, excited about worshiping God. There was one section of the service where Father Francis led us in prayer, and encouraged everyone to join together. I stood there, holding on to my daddy's hand on my left, with Ben's hand on my shoulder to my right. It was such a lovely picture of community, and such a reminder that God works in any demoniation if the people's hearts are open to Him.

The Right Idea

Sometimes I really think my ancestors had the right idea with that whole communal living thing. Prior to 1932, Amana was a communal society. Nobody owned anything. Nobody received wages. Everything was provided for everyone in need. Okay, that stuff seems a little bit weird nowadays. I can understand why that didn't last. But the thing I really like about the early Amana days- the thing that I wish, somehow, we could've held onto- is the idea of the Kitchen Houses. When girls were done with school at 13 or 14, they had two choices: work in the kitchen or work in the garden. Sometimes I think that my indecisive self would've fit in very well back then. Only having two career choices would certainly have narrowed things down. Yeah, I'm not too adept in either the kitchen or the yard, but I'm sure I would've learned.

But that's not the point. Every day, for lunch and dinner, the townspeople would all go to their respective kitchen house- there was at least one in each of the seven villages- and share meals together. It was usually 40 some people per house, all fed by the Kitchen Boss and her workers. Individual houses didn't even have much in the way of kitchens. The Kitchen Houses were where it all happened. I think it's a very charming set-up.

I think the hardest thing about graduating from college was having to eat by myself. I had been used to eating dinner with a big, fun group of people for years. Many of my fondest Mount Mercy memories happened at "our table" in the cafeteria. It was my group of friends' spot for, I think, three out of the four years, along the wall by the McAuley dorm. Everyone knew where to find us. We had good times at that table. I remember laughing so hard at Eric Chrisman that it took me forever to finish my meal. I remember Debbie Fontenoy and Bill Huff getting into silly arguments and dumping their beverages on each other's plates. Kathi Pudzuvelis even knew where to find Bill and I during that year that she essentially owned us. She would walk in from McAuley, point at us, come on in, and eat our food as she told us what we needed to do in the theater.

That table is where a lot of our lives happened. Often we would stay for much longer than we needed to, sharing stories from our day, planning events for the evening, helping Emily and Tauna smuggle out as many ice cream treats as they could, watching Capecchi eat bowl after bowl of frozen yogurt. It was good times. Once, we even decided to have a family-style meal. They were serving spaghetti, and instead of each of us getting our own trays, we instead set the table first, and then all had assignments. One person got all of the spaghetti; another got a tray full of breadsticks. Someone else filled cereal bowls with spaghetti sauce, and another got big bowls of salad and cottage cheese. Everyone else in the cafeteria just stared. We all brought our items to the center of our table, said grace, and passed it all around, eating together as a family.

When I moved into my first apartment in Omaha, and knew no one, I had some lonely, mediocre meals in my little kitchen. And it's just not good to eat alone all the time.

This summer, our group is getting together every Monday night for a meal. It's been really fun starting the week off in community. June started with Luke and Adam making us breakfast food. Two weeks ago, Charlotte, Beth, Tabitha and I made a lot of manicotti. Last week we had tacos at the V Street house. And tonight we gathered down in Bellevue for a meal out on Matt and Justin's deck. And as David and Naldo passed me up on the interstate driving home, I just felt so happy to be a part of this fellowship, to have this group of people as friends. I've come a long way from that first apartment.

Community is a beautiful thing. The Amana people had the right idea.

Passing Through the Waters

It's amazing how life can change in a short amount of time. Last Saturday evening, my biggest concern was beating Matt and Justin at Scrabble (which I did, thank you very much). But this Saturday, life is so different.

Beth was in the hospital for most of the week, and we still don't know why. She had some black out episodes, and some trouble walking. It's very bizarre, and unsettling that there are no answers. She's home now, and she's fine, but life is definitely not normal. There are too many unanswered questions in the air.

I was in Kearney for several days for a conference, safe and sound when the tornados were ripping through Omaha Wednesday night. I was safe, but my heart was anxious. Then Thursday I woke up to more vivid news about the catastrophic flooding in Cedar Rapids. It's always unnerving to see your hometown on the national news. I can't quite wrap my mind around this. I've been watching the news and the internet, but images like this still seem like they belong in a movie, not in my hometown.

I can't quite believe that the Cedar Rapids Public Library, where the first show I ever directed was performed, is submerged. The Science Station, where I took many an elementary school field trip, is probably destroyed. And only the roof of the Czech Museum, where I interned for a semester, is visible above the waters in Czech Village. I am sad to wonder what the conditions are at the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art. I'm just praying that it won't hit Iowa City too hard, and that Amana will remain safe from the rising waters of the Iowa River.

It's just so surreal that the Cedar Rapids I've known and loved all these years won't ever be the same. But though it's heartbreaking, the casualty count is low, and the community is coming together in beautiful ways. Aroea had this to say in her latest email update to her friends and family:

Still in the midst of all of this the Lord has been quick to comfort me. More than once this passage has been presented to me:

Isaiah 43:2 “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you...”

And again I find life to be all too literal.

The waters have come within a block of our home and stopped. As of now there’s not even sewage backing up in the basement as we had expected. I don’t mean to make light of the 9000 people who’ve been displaced from their homes, some of which are my neighbors, but for us, the waters have not overtaken us. Furthermore, I'm filled with hope as I think of working with the members of my community in the coming months to rebuild what has been lost. It may be hard, but we're all going to be okay.