l'Arche Northern Virginia!

Interesting how life works, how God works. Just a few weeks I felt up a creek, not sure of what to do next or which direction to take. I was in the process of applying to l'Arche Tahoma Hope in Tacoma, WA, and the idea of having to drive all the way back across country was a little unsettling, mainly because I would probably have done it by myself. My original plan to go to DC l'Arche just felt...right. I could be close to home and see my parents on my days away. I could interview at schools where I'm hoping to attend next year (all of which are on the East Coast). I could help my mom with planning for my sister's wedding. I could fly up to Boston to see some friends (which is a short jaunt compared to the tortuous flight across country). All those things made me feel especially bummed when l'Arche DC informed me that they had already filled their late August position.

Then...just a few days ago, as I was filling out my application to l'Arche Tahoma, I get an email from l'Arche DC, saying they have an unexpected opening in late September and they want to start the interview process right away! I have so far done two phone interviews which have both gone well. It really helps that I've been living in a l'Arche community for the past 3 months. I'm sold on the philosophy and have had the practical experience. Turns out, they are opening a new house in Arlington, Virginia, and I would be living there instead of one of the DC l'Arche houses. This had me slightly bummed (I was so looking forward to living in the city!) but Arlington is so close and a very cool town. I am happy!

Again, I say, interesting how God works. So, come September 6th to July of 2007, looks like I'll be living in Virginia! As one can imagine, my parents are ecstatic. My mom has been doing celebratory dances for about a week. Arlington is just across the river from DC which will make going into the city an easy thing. This is a little snippet I got from the DC l'Arche website: "To double the size of the L’Arche community, L’Arche is expanding into Northern Virginia where we will welcome eight additional people with developmental disabilities. L’Arche purchased two homes in Arlington Virginia in June 2004 and plans to open the first new home this summer when renovations are complete."

At this point, I am trying to transition out of my time here at l'Arche Nehalem with grace. I was reflecting back on when I first came, how new and overwhelming everything felt. Now, there hardly seems a time when I wasn't living here and living the l'Arche life. I take off in about a week, on September 6th. Portland has been such an interesting place to live, and I am really glad I was able to spend a lot of time with Melissa and Jacob while I was here. I could see myself coming back to the Northwest sometime in the near future. It's a beautiful part of the country, for sure. Funny that I will be going from one of the hippiest, crunchy, enviro-local friendly, peacenik towns in the country to Arlington, VA, home of a dozen war memorials and Army/Navy sites. Sigh. It will have a different feel, for sure.

OK....I am on today at 12 which means time to go to the Bipartisan for some coffee. A morning ritual.

And here are some photos of the Oregon coast

Photos from our trip to Long Beach

This is a replica of the tree William Clark carved in when he visited Long Beach on the very last leg of this journey out West. It says, "William Clark, November 19, 1805, by land from the U States." Strange to think that WA wasn't a State at that point.


We hiked a bit through the forest...


Jacob "discovering" the William Clark tree...

We went in search what remained of the great civilization, the Chinook Nation, that once lived in that area of Washington. All we found was this run-down, one room office...it wasn't opened when we went.

Northwest beaches are wild places. The Pacific Ocean is so vast, so unpredictable. And we found these clumps of seaweed that literally looked other-worldly.

You win some, you lose some

Well...as I suspected, you can never really plan too far ahead. Once you are sure of something, once you've written it in stone, something changes and you find youself back to square one. Or at least I do. I worry and fret and fuss and moan, only to find that worrying and fretting and fussing and moaning did nothing to give me control. They just stressed me out. Planning in general stresses me. This is why I hate packing.....too many decisions to make and not enough knowledge to run on. Will it rain? Do I need a swim suit? What about sunscreen? Blah blah. Soon...you find youself lugging 7 suitcases behind you on the way to the airport. Or, you find youself freezing cold in a hail storm in the middle of July because, for some reason, you forgot to pack your fleece-lined winter jacket for your trip to the beach.

All this being said, l'Arche DC has already filled their open position for the Fall (they neglected to tell me this). And, their next available position is in December, some ways away. So, it looks like DC is out and we are back to where we began: What to do starting September. I have some ideas, but nothing that involves actually getting hired somewhere and getting a real salary. Is this a surprise? L'Arche Tahoma Hope (in Tacoma, WA) is hiring for a new assistant and Melissa knows the community coordinator quite well. I definitely have an "in" there if I wanted it. She got to know some of the core members and assistants this weekend at Regional Gathering and really liked them. Tahoma Hope is the only l'Arche community in the US that is also a farm. Several communities in France have farms, but it is a new idea in the States. Last weekend we went up there for a BBQ and I was able to see the farm and meet some of the folks there and tour the grounds. They have a chapel which I thought was really beautiful and a lot of space to walk around. I liked it there. So, I could potentially join l'Arche Tahoma for a bit, at least until next July or something.

Also, I've thought about doing something temporary (who knows what) until January and then heading back to Romania until the summer. I could raise the money pretty easily, and I would be a big help to Dana in terms of helping to organize the social work internship and getting the study abroad program off the ground. There's a lot of work there to be done, and Dana and Brandi and Briana are three of my favorite people on the planet. This is, of course, a non-money-making option, but I don't really expect to be making money until after a grad degree (Ha! getting a job with an MTS??).

Anyway, the parents are coming to town (Florers and Bixlers) this week and I am in the midst of trying to plan Melissa's picnic shower for Thursday. Doesn't look like a lot of folks will be able to come which is unfortunate. Thursday isn't the most popular day of the week, I guess.

Since Melissa was up in Spokane this weekend at Regional Gathering, Jacob and I drove up to Long Beach, Washington (Kite Capital of the world?) and stayed with Tim and a large portion of his extended family at their beach house. It was really nice to get away and meet some new people. The house they were renting for the week was literally right next to the ocean....you could see it from the upstairs windows. And it was huge! But, nonetheless, there were 15 people in a house that supposed to fit 9. At night, there was hardly a square inch to be found...people were sleeping on the floor, on the couches, in all the rooms. Tim and Jacob pitched a tent down the road and slept there. There were cousins and nephews and sisters and aunts and Grandma Roth, the matriarch. We raced go-carts in town (my testosterone levels went way up after we raced) and played a lot of video games (Mario-kart!) and played Clue like it was our job and walked on the beach. It was really a nice time, and I really enjoyed getting to know Tim better. He is a high-quality human being.

potentially, a new plan....

I've thought more and more about studying theology next year. I feel like having a solid foundation in theology, philosophy, and Christian ethics would be a great stepping stone for other things, like social work or international development, etc. I know I went to a Christian undergrad, but Gordon did more to turn me off to the study of theology than excite me about it. Sad to say, but true.

Yes, yes, a change of plans. Melissa has been trying to convince me for some time that I would really enjoy the Divinity School at Duke, but I persisted. I mean, I have to individuate sometime...can I really continue to follow my sister everywhere? Anyway, not exactly the best reason to avoid Duke as a potential grad school, that's for sure. When I actually sat down and looked at the course listings, I got really excited. And an MTS (Masters of Theological Study) provides a lot of freedom within the curriculum. Only a few Bible core, some church history, but otherwise...it's electives galore. And, there are some pretty sweet concentrations: Ethics, Black Church studies, and the Global Church all look especially interesting.

This link pretty much says it all. Duke Divinity even does a pilgrimage to Uganda and Rwanda each summer! https://exchange.gordon.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.divinity.duke.edu/programs/bcs/gatherings/summer2006.pdf

I've listed some courses and their descriptions below, the ones the specifically peaked my interest.

Biblical Studies

145. To Work and Watch: Toward a Biblical Ecology/Theology of Land. The aims of this course are to: 1. Explore ancient Israel’s theological understandings of land tenure and use, and further, to explore how land is a crucial element in the relations between humanity and the other creatures, on the one hand, humanity and God, on the other. 2. To engage in a serious rereading of the biblical text in light of the contemporary ecological crisis. 3. To identify ideologies of land tenure and usage that are operative in contemporary societies, including our own, and to examine them critically in light of the biblical text and the present crisis.
270. Paul’s "Mother Tongue:" Interpreting and Approaching Paul’s Parental Metaphors. This course aims at recovering Paul’s "mother tongue" through a close reading of his parental metaphors, with particular attention to his use of maternal imagery. The course attends to the background of that imagery in prophetic and apocalyptic literature, as well as appropriations in the early church. The course will include readings in metaphor theory, exegesis of selected texts, and reflection on both destructive and constructive ways that parental metaphors function in the church today.

Christian Theology

210. Theology, Justice and the Intellectual Life. Can theology intervene in the world to diagnose its injustices and to chart intellectual paths toward remedying them – or is it an impediment to justice? The course probes this question by examining the intellectual life first in its classical, theological framework, where justice and the intellectual life were unified in a singular theological project, and then in its more recent guise, which assumes that only a "de-theologized" intellectual life can adequately diagnose what ails the world. The course considers the works of Arendt, Heidegger, Foucault, and W.E.B. Du Bois.
265. The Significance of Memory. Theological and Ecclesial Perspectives. Explores memory as a communal performance that has implications for how we understand life in the world. Through examining the church as a community of memory, it narrates how Christians remember the past and the importance of liturgical memory for understanding the present and future. The course highlights how Christians and social groups can remember truthfully in life-affirming rather than life-denying ways by suggesting how liturgical remembering might shape how we remember the wrongs inflicted and suffered in daily life.

Ethics

205. War in the Christian Tradition. An analysis of how Christians have understood and evaluated war. Particular attention to the question of whether war should not be regarded as a positive moral good. Works by Augustine, Aquinas, Bainton, Ramsey, Childress, Niebuhr, and Johnson will be considered.

251. Goodness and Personhood. Concepts of "the good" are inextricably linked to the way in which personhood is understood. This seminar treats texts both ancient and recent that address such issues as the relationship between the finitude of human life and its meaningfulness, the metaphors of the "inner" life and "centeredness," the differences and affinities between reason and desire, and the significance of the notions of presence and transcendence. Authors include the writers of the Song of Songs and Job, Plato, Augustine of Hippo, Iris Murdoch, and Martha Nussbaum
296. Community, Faith, and Violence. This seminar explores attempts to formulate fundamentally theological modes of social and political criticism with the focus on the role of faith and violence in secular society. Readings include works by theologians, social critics, and political theorists.

Black Church Studies

128. The Life and Thought of Martin Luther King, Jr. An examination of the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., his theology, and his continuing influence on the church’s ministry.
230. Theology and the Black Activist Tradition. At the methodological center of the tradition of black radicalism is a certain understanding of the (black) intellectual and his or her task. This course examines this center from the vantage of religion and theology. It will do so by considering this tradition’s formation, on the one hand, and the meaning of the intellectual, who is a central figure in it, on the other. In this sense, the course seeks religiously and theologically to intervene into the question of the so-called crisis of the black intellectual with a view to showing it to be, in many respects, a "crisis of intellectuality" (academic, ministerial, and otherwise) as such. Central to our inquiry will be the religious meaning of the figure of W. E. B. Du Bois.
260. Suffering, Evil, and Redemption in Black Theology. Explores the black Christian Tradition with respect to the problem of suffering and evil in black life. Against the backdrop of evil in church history, the course provides a historic overview of perspectives on suffering and redemption articulated by African American Christians such as Maria Stewart and Martin Luther King Jr.

World Christianity

200. The Faces of Jesus in Africa. The course will seek to explore and highlight the assumptions underlying the various constructions of ‘the Faces of Jesus’ within African theology. In particular, the social, historical and theological factors surrounding African Enculturation, Liberation and Feminist Christologies respectively will be examined. The goal of the course will be to lead students to a better appreciation of the complexity of African culture in general, of the challenges facing African Christians today in particular.

211. Healing in the Developing World and Care of the Underserved: Medical and Theological Considerations. The course pays particular attention to issues of religion, especially the ways in which an appreciation of religious and theological issues can be helpful in developing a noncolonial perspective when providing care in a developing country or with the underserved in the USA. The development of health ministries crossculturally will be a theme throughout the course.
240. Postcolonial Identities and Theologies in Africa. This course will provide an overview of the current trends in African theological philosophical thought, especially those relating to or built around the notion of (post)-colonial identity.
245. The Rwanda Genocide and the Challenge for the Church. The course explores the events and ‘reasons’ surrounding the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, from both a historical and theological perspective. The current ‘explanations’ for the genocide are critically analyzed and discussed with a view of raising wider issues relating to African history, memory and violence on the one hand, the church’s social role in Africa on the other.

255. Journeys of Reconciliation. This course not only seeks to highlight why reconciliation matters for Christians (it is at the heart of the Gospel), but also displays how and in what ways it matters by exploring the key convictions that sustain a Christian understanding and practice of reconciliation. The course approaches reconciliation as a journey – a set of journeys – through which the Christian is invited to become part of God’s new creation.