Commulife

Today, my fellow blogger and I had a pretty serious meeting with some pretty interesting people. I say it's serious because it will most certainly define the next year of our lives, and probably the rest of our lives in some sort of way. We're planning on moving in together, and with two friends, to live in intentional community. Sometimes I think about what will be different from just 4 people moving in together as roommates--I'm not really sure. Deliberately spending time together will be one part. Caring about the other people's crap will be another. Praying together, eating together, challenging each other, not ignoring problems but facing them head on. Forgiving each other, and asking for forgiveness. I guess getting intentionally that close to people will be interesting--it's strange to think that everyone I meet is just as complex as me, has just as many conflicting emotions and likes and dislikes. Oh but that's exciting. I am going to get to know these three people--all of whom I know already in varying degrees--so very well. Will this experience living in community, which I believe is the best way to live (never having lived in an intentional community before) affirm that belief, or destroy it? Will this be an experience that I look back on as the time I decided living in isolation and becoming a hermit or a cloistered nun is the best thing for me, or will it be the first of many experiences with community, each enriching and difficult and challenging and beautiful? I don't know. I guess I'll find out. Tomorrow we look for apartments.

BAH! sometimes I think about this thing and it makes me LAUGH!

So I just checked my last blog--my friend wasn't buying me a christmas present. Or maybe she forgot to give it to me, but i did not get that from her for christmas. But I dunno why she was being sneaky then. It's kind of strange. Hm. What an interesting situation.

So today I was thinking about rejoicing in other people's gifts, and what a cool thing that is. I wish I were better at it! Cause if everything we're good at and everything we have is a gift from God, then whatever you have is also a gift from him, and so we're both equally blessed by both our gifts, right? So I should be just as happy that you're good at guitar as if I were, because I get to hear beautiful music. And I should be so pleased that you are a good baker because I get to eat delicious baked goods. And I should be so overjoyed that you are so good at drawing because you make funny cartoons and interesting art. I should be. I'm usually less pleased than I would like about your gifts! But I think probably that says a lot about how we're supposed to see our gifts and what we're good at--as something that we have so that we can share it with others. And that's really lovely, I think. And it means that we can't de-value ourselves, we can't say that we're not actually good at something (especially if it's false humility and we know we actually are) because the point of a gift is not to bring praise to the gifted, it's to be shared with EVERYONE! What a great thing! Haha! Lovely.

Anyway. This blog makes me laugh because we were so excited about it for about a week. Yep.