Keep Walking

I was asked the other day if people here have been let down by the expectations they had when first moving in. I can only speak for myself. I do not think I had specific expectations, only hope. With years previous spent living in different situations with different amounts of people I did not think it would be a walk in the park. I only hoped that whatever that walk looked like, it would be worthwhile.

People and relationships can be complicated and messy, but I would not want life without them. Sometimes people ask me how things are going. I usually respond that it is good but hard, or hard but good, depending on how I've been most affected lately. People seem surprised or curious. I imagine that most marriages, journeys, or life paths have been hard but good too. It's part of life. I believe that everything in life worth doing will have hard or unpleasant elements.

I've been living with a lot of these people for almost a year and a half now. Many of them I would not've come to know otherwise. The first year was quiet, a time of acquaintance, you could say. The last six months have more so been learning what it is to live together and with some to share life together.

I have at times felt defeat. That because things have been hard, or did not go as planned, that ambitions to live and love have been in vain. In such moments I have been advised this is not failure. This was in fact what I wanted, what I set out for. I just didn't know what it would look like. In that I find desire to keep going.

Some people have tasted and tried a year or so of living together and have lost interest and are ready to move on. Some people may've lost heart. To some it no longer serves their needs. As in every practice you must continue to go deeper to receive the benefits. I am so grateful for those who continue to come alongside me in this endeavor.

Sophia

Converge Magazine Article

Recently, Converge Magazine published the article below about our community. The magazine's website can be found at http://www.convergemagazine.com/

Why I Moved In, Part 5

"The person who loves their own dream of community (even if intentions are ever so earnest) will destroy it, but the person who loves those around them will create community."

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It's hard for me to think back with clarity to a time when I was not utterly enmeshed in Atangard. For me, Atangard Community Project began long before we moved into 33790 Essendene Ave. My energy and thoughts started funneling towards community when I moved out here from Saskatchewan over 3 years ago. A group of people interesting in living in and working towards creating a community living space was one of the reasons I made the trek to BC.

After high school, as you may have read below, I went to a Capernwray school in Greece and was lucky enough to landed a beautiful roommate named Tessa Marie Suderman. She taught me a lot - about God, about friendship and about myself. She also showed me how to look at myself in a way I never had before. You see, by the time I got to Greece, although I may not have looked it on the outside, I was in pretty rough shape. I had spent the previous three weeks alternating between depression and elation and arguing with my family while travelling through Europe. Before that had been a year of tremendous lows, screaming, unusual behavior, tears and finally - seeking help and opening up to my parents about what was going inside of me and how scared and confused I really was. To tell the truth, that year is a little hazy. Like many bad months or episodes since - it is closer to a bad dream than a real experience.

To be a little dramatic, Greece was really the beginning of new life and although it took me several years to find my way back to Tess after Greece and really, here, to the start my life - that was where it all began. Let me explain what I mean.

My time in Greece gave me a love for and an interest in community that I never had previously, because I had never experienced it. After leaving, although I did another brief stint in Austria at a bible school in a community setting (equally good), I continued to battle ups and downs and was diagnosed as bipolar. I was on and off different medications, struggling to grow up and figure out how to live on my own, and mostly did not do this very well. I did this in Winnipeg, Manitoba as I was attending design school at Red River College. The support system that I was blessed with there was amazing, but it wasn't enough. Or maybe it was me that wasn't healthy enough, mentally or physically, to reach for or create a community like the one I dreamed of.

After all of that, design school behind me and blank slate before me, I did what I always did, moved to a new place. This time, Abbotsford, BC. What happened next however, was unusual - I stayed. And this staying has brought me a community that has enabled me to live life in a way I did not dare hope I could. Pharmaceutical med free, healthy and happy.

My dream was a community that worked, slept, ate, cried, laughed - LIVED together. That is what I was reaching for when I stuffed a lot of junk in a U-haul. Since then, my dream has been complicated by the complications of living in and trying to be a leader in an actual community. And as I try to do that leading, along with four other directors, sometimes we make mistakes. I worry that decisions we make, even with the most earnest of intentions (which I do not worry about, we are very earnest), will destroy our community. I am reminded, wisely, by others that this place is remarkably strong and resilient. That strength is something I draw from more than I realize, except when I take time to reflect and realize how much this place and these people have given me.

Beth

our pilgrimage together

A Music Video By Rags to Riches Filmed On Location In Atangard

Why I decided to live in community.

Why did I decide to live in community?

I don't understand fully why this question is so hard for me to answer. After rewriting this afew times, I finally decided to dig through old journals to see what I was writing about, (back when i had time/made time) to write more, thinking this might jarg some old memories of when I first started thinking about community. What I found? So many prayers to God about loneliness. So much passion and eagerness at the thought of community. I have prayer after prayer written out about this community experience I so desired. What I most desired was meaningful relationships...tons of them. I guess at the time, I couldnt imagine anything better then having a quiver full of friends!

I began to experience small doses of community after a very lonely and somewhat depression high school experience (although I was pretty good a faking it to everyone but my family). I went away after school to bible school and met this really awesome girl (whome, most of you now know, yes the one and only Elizabeth Ashton) who became one of my first real and dearest friends. She was also the only friend I made at bible school, as I was a recluse, as in.. afraid of people. She spoke a lot of truth into my life that betrayed some of the lies I believed about myself, and not only that, but she was a friend to me. This, however, is not the beginnings of community I was referring to, just a little bit of preface.
I don't imagine you want to read about all the events in my life that lead up to me being involved in atangard, so I will try very hard to relay a concise overview because it all has everything to do with how I decided I wanted to live in community.
After coming home from bible school I went to california to hangout with Sofe for 10 days, (who was also at bible school) and encountered a community of people who blew my mind. There were a ton of people in the early to mid 20's living in different houses, and they were family. Not family by blood, but family by nessecity. And in those 10 days they took me in as part of their family. This was my second encounter with people I really believed sincerely liked me. (yes, i definitly had some self esteem issues) This inspired me. I went home and decided to start something to get people together...make some friends. Thursday night, art night. People started show'n up at my parents house. We couldnt get enough of eachother! We started having themed dinner parties and breakfast clubs. Art nights were less and less about art, and more about hang'n out and talking till all hours. By this time, I was getting used to the idea that people sometimes liked me. This was also about the times when I started to get a taste of some of the challenges of community.
Beth wrote me something that rung so true to me, "Being a Loner is easier...investing yourself in conversation with people you meet one night and quite possibly will never meet again...its easier to be a bright shining moment then in someones life day in and day out. So where do you go when your shining moment lingers, but begins to fade...and the shining moment becomes a ghost- ready to be blown away- to vanish..". I read that and it still rings true to me, the more people I invite into my life, the more complicated it becomes (Lets be honest, humanity can be pretty messy at times).
I decided to end art night eventually because we werent really doing art anymore, so we could just hang out without a label. I ended up moving out with a friend around that time, and after 6 months, my roomate got married, and I lured afew friends to take her place. 5 roomates in a 2 bedroom apartment. It was during this time when the idea of atangard began to form and materialize. Atangard happened just in time in my opinion. With such tight quaters our living situation wasnt sustainable.

I suppose living in community was a disicion I made at some point, but I mostly feel, after giving it much thought, that it was my only option, because I didnt want the alternative. I don't think I could have fully understood the cost of living in community (ive briefly illuded to the fact that living in community hasnt been all bike rides and hula hooping), but I am very grateful that I am here. There is so much to learn here with my 26 roomates. So many parties to plan and freak'n awesome people i have the ultmate privilage to get to know. So much Im learning about myself (ulgh, the good the bad and the ugly), and so much to learn about God and my utter need for Him. I believe that God intended us to live more relationally then how our society has modeled. So for now, this is me give'n a crack at it... in all my humanity.

...

By now, some of you that follow this blog have picked up on the most recent theme of our posts. Those who we have looked to for wisdom beyond these brick walls have posed the following questions to our community leaders: why do you live and invest in Atangard and what makes it worth it to you? These questions and the like are what we are seeking to answer in our most recent entries.

When I first got involved in this community I did so with no intention of becoming a resident. My first motive was to get involved because I had friends who where excited and implicated. My second was probably the prospect of new friendships. As well, at the time I was unemployed and awaiting summer work, so I had an ample amount of time that needed to be occupied (which was, thanks to the renovation process). After I got involved and started to experience the passion and excitement of those around me, I too started to look ahead in anticipation of this downtown community.

Nine months later, however, I moved in and six months after that I stepped into a position as a director. At that point, mostly do to the responses that I had received from those I spoke to regarding this project, I realized that it was different and special, and possibly a bit counter cultural. Being a fairly social, 24 year old sociology student, the idea of living in a communal setting with well over 20 people was extremely attractive. Further still, after being asked if I wanted to become a director, I did so because I thought it would be a good way to involve myself.

I think it is important to mention that I have been physically absent from the community for 4 of the 7 months that I have been a resident. During this time, I had been left with a similar ideal and understanding of the community as I did when I was first involved. And now, after living here for the past few months, amongst many who have been here since the beginning, I find myself with an ambiguous understanding of community living.

Perhaps, it may be helpful to compare my own position living here with that of the Christian walk of faith. When one becomes a Christian, it seems, there is much passion for a relationship with Christ and a desire to pursue a godly life; however, there may be a severe lack of understanding in how this relationship should play out. Of course, one is expected to mature and grow in their faith so that they may have a more holistic grasp on what it means to be in a relationship with Christ. This is where I find myself in the ethos of community living. I have the desire to pursue living in this community, but, I am still trying to work out what it entails.
I feel like my situation may not be an isolated one. I think that many others who live here are in a similar position or at least share different (and possibly conflicting) ideas regarding community living. Out of this I have two current, overarching reasons for investing in this place.

1.I am at a loss for a proper and holistic understanding of what community living is, why it is valuable, why it is so difficult, and what learned here can transcend our specific situation and help us consider the world around us and our relationship with God. I hope that living here will help me grow in this respect and I feel that since I live here and participate in leadership, it is my responsibility to do so. This conviction I find is in harmony with a verse in the book of James: `Dear brothers and sisters, not many of you should become teachers in the church, for we who teach will be judged more strictly` (James 3:1).

2.I am falling in love with those whom I share this space and experience. There is something to be said about the power of the physical to bring people together. For me, this building and the relationships it sponsors has the ability to promote spiritual connections between people, similar to that of shared genetics within a family. I hope to one day leave this place, forever affected by my experience here, taking with me many lasting relationships.

These are the most important reasons why I live and invest in this place and why this investment is worth the next few years of my life.