Doug just return from training with the MCC in Akron. He learned that he is an INTJ and that his wife is an INFP. :)
Johanna has been quite sick since our return, she has been taking antibiotics, might have pneumonia, however, she is def. getting better.
Jacob is so cute. His face is filling out and he has these "knock ya dead" big brown eyes.
Angela, is recovering from an infection.
Ben is in the third week at his new job as a researcher at Mt. Sinai Hospital.
Jodie is Ta-ing for a class in Church history and grading for a class in The Gospels.
She is keeping busy writing a paper on Weber and Foucault and taking care of Johanna.
We met for a community meeting last night and decided we miss you all.
What is up with you?
Monday, January 30, 2006
Sunday, January 22, 2006
A Time To PRAY
I want to find a time to pray for Heather and Mike's baby. The little guy or gal is facing a heart surgery right after birth. We want to find a time in the day to coordinate prayer. I was thinking that each of us could make a pact to pray every dinner for our little babe.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
New Community Member
Naji and Anne had their third little boy today - guess that means I need to go buy another Walter book. The little community is certainly growing! We'll try to do our part beginning in 5 months (Brooke would prefer I say 17 here).
Monday, January 16, 2006
Untitled from BC
Well, here it is. I am officially a blogging member of the community, with full administrative rights. I'd like to dedicate this posting to John, for his encouragement and care throughout the years and for his supportive comments blogged on 30 December.
Sunday, January 08, 2006
Toronto Star Article
An experiment in `new monasticism'
SHARING | Two young families pool their resources to live in the style of early Christians, writes Leslie Scrivener
Jan. 8, 2006. 01:00 AM
In the little Parkdale house they share, two young families sit down to dinner — a scene that would be completely ordinary were it not for the reasons they live together.
There's a comfortable feeling as the parents and children link hands and begin their meal with a prayer. Books on the side table reveal a bit about their interests: Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's book on living in a community, and The Political Theology of Paul. That's St. Paul.
Though it doesn't look like it, these two married couples — with their babies, donated furniture and Holly the dog — are living what they call the "new monasticism."
It's a movement that started about a decade ago in the United States and has been slowly spreading there and now in Canada.
The two families, which are in their third month of communal living, share their beliefs in the same way they share the cooking, cleaning, child-care — and all the money they earn.
When Ben ElzingaCheng was offered a job as a research technician at Mount Sinai Hospital, after his arrival in Toronto in November from British Columbia, he and wife Angela sat down with the other couple to discuss whether he should take the job.
Angela, a community organizer had just given birth to their first child, Jacob. The other couple — Jodie Boyer Hatlem, who's working on her PhD at the University of Toronto, and street pastor Doug Johnson Hatlem have two children: Johanna, 2, and Simeon, 11 months.
How would Ben's working full-time affect their little community? In the end, they decided he should take the position.
Doug and Jodie, who are Americans, are pacifists deeply opposed to the war in Iraq.
Ben and Angela are Canadians who feel the same way.
These four monastics are all Christians who grew up in middle-class, evangelical families.
They reject the consumerism of North American culture and they are dedicated to living simply, offering hospitality to those in need, sharing what they earn and practising peace-making.
In a way, each of them has gone beyond the traditional Christianity in which they were raised.
"I go back to my faith community — my church — and tell them we're pacifists and it's almost like it's heretical," says Jodie.
Doug grew up in a fundamentalist Baptist congregation, but his life was changed when one of his university professors, a Mennonite, introduced him to the concept of pacifism.
"I couldn't shake the idea that you can't take the gospel seriously if you don't take seriously the pacifist spirit of early Christianity," he says.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
They share their beliefs as they share the cooking, cleaning, child-care — and all the money they earn
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"With all the Bible-thumping I'd been raised on, I fought hard against it, but ultimately I changed."
Says Ben: "When I was growing up, my family's church focused on personal salvation. The most important thing was evangelism and reaching non-believers. And if you worked hard, God would reward you.
"But I wanted my faith to be a bit more real. I always felt a disconnect between what my faith commanded and how I was living my life, about actually putting faith into action.
"If I had a career and a house and family and went to church on Sunday, it wouldn't feel real."
Angela's family was committed to Christian education and she later worked organizing communities — one was to help families in Grand Rapids, Mich., have more influence in their children's education.
"I've been pushed beyond how I grew up," she says. "Here I can offer hospitality in ways I wouldn't do myself. I grew up middle-class, my education is high but I want to live differently."
They model their lives on the first Christian communities. Those early Christians, as described in The Acts of the Apostles, rejected private ownership and shared their possessions communally. Those who owned property sold it and gave the money to the apostles to be distributed to those in need.
According to Stanley Hauerwas, a theology professor at Duke University in Durham, N.C., new monasticism is exactly what Christianity needs now.
"We are watching the death of Christianity, particularly Protestantism," Hauerwas says. "It's become so deeply accommodating to the world, people are thinking: `Why you would bother with it?'"
How accommodating?
"The war. Christians don't have a problem with the war .... The other accommodation of the church is money. Christians think we need a lot of it. They want to be upper middle-class and believe in Jesus, too.
"They worry about how gays are destroying the family and don't get the fact that what's destroying the family is money — not gays."
A block from Duke University, in a poor black neighbourhood, is another new monastic community.
Ten people, blacks and whites, share meals and open their doors to neighbours in need. Recently released prisoners and people who have lost their apartments because they couldn't pay the rent have been invited to stay.
The Durham monastics have been inspired in part by the Catholic Worker Movement, which also has a community in Toronto that includes James Loney, one of the four Christian peacemakers who were taken hostage in Baghdad on Nov. 26.
Catholic Worker groups stress hospitality, voluntary poverty, prayer and community living.
Back in Parkdale, where life together is only a few months old, the two couples are still sorting out exactly how they will practise their new monasticism as they get to know their neighbourhood, find work and welcome a new baby into their midst.
"But we have prayed about this a lot," says Ben ElzingaCheng. "This is the right thing to do."
SHARING | Two young families pool their resources to live in the style of early Christians, writes Leslie Scrivener
Jan. 8, 2006. 01:00 AM
In the little Parkdale house they share, two young families sit down to dinner — a scene that would be completely ordinary were it not for the reasons they live together.
There's a comfortable feeling as the parents and children link hands and begin their meal with a prayer. Books on the side table reveal a bit about their interests: Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's book on living in a community, and The Political Theology of Paul. That's St. Paul.
Though it doesn't look like it, these two married couples — with their babies, donated furniture and Holly the dog — are living what they call the "new monasticism."
It's a movement that started about a decade ago in the United States and has been slowly spreading there and now in Canada.
The two families, which are in their third month of communal living, share their beliefs in the same way they share the cooking, cleaning, child-care — and all the money they earn.
When Ben ElzingaCheng was offered a job as a research technician at Mount Sinai Hospital, after his arrival in Toronto in November from British Columbia, he and wife Angela sat down with the other couple to discuss whether he should take the job.
Angela, a community organizer had just given birth to their first child, Jacob. The other couple — Jodie Boyer Hatlem, who's working on her PhD at the University of Toronto, and street pastor Doug Johnson Hatlem have two children: Johanna, 2, and Simeon, 11 months.
How would Ben's working full-time affect their little community? In the end, they decided he should take the position.
Doug and Jodie, who are Americans, are pacifists deeply opposed to the war in Iraq.
Ben and Angela are Canadians who feel the same way.
These four monastics are all Christians who grew up in middle-class, evangelical families.
They reject the consumerism of North American culture and they are dedicated to living simply, offering hospitality to those in need, sharing what they earn and practising peace-making.
In a way, each of them has gone beyond the traditional Christianity in which they were raised.
"I go back to my faith community — my church — and tell them we're pacifists and it's almost like it's heretical," says Jodie.
Doug grew up in a fundamentalist Baptist congregation, but his life was changed when one of his university professors, a Mennonite, introduced him to the concept of pacifism.
"I couldn't shake the idea that you can't take the gospel seriously if you don't take seriously the pacifist spirit of early Christianity," he says.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
They share their beliefs as they share the cooking, cleaning, child-care — and all the money they earn
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"With all the Bible-thumping I'd been raised on, I fought hard against it, but ultimately I changed."
Says Ben: "When I was growing up, my family's church focused on personal salvation. The most important thing was evangelism and reaching non-believers. And if you worked hard, God would reward you.
"But I wanted my faith to be a bit more real. I always felt a disconnect between what my faith commanded and how I was living my life, about actually putting faith into action.
"If I had a career and a house and family and went to church on Sunday, it wouldn't feel real."
Angela's family was committed to Christian education and she later worked organizing communities — one was to help families in Grand Rapids, Mich., have more influence in their children's education.
"I've been pushed beyond how I grew up," she says. "Here I can offer hospitality in ways I wouldn't do myself. I grew up middle-class, my education is high but I want to live differently."
They model their lives on the first Christian communities. Those early Christians, as described in The Acts of the Apostles, rejected private ownership and shared their possessions communally. Those who owned property sold it and gave the money to the apostles to be distributed to those in need.
According to Stanley Hauerwas, a theology professor at Duke University in Durham, N.C., new monasticism is exactly what Christianity needs now.
"We are watching the death of Christianity, particularly Protestantism," Hauerwas says. "It's become so deeply accommodating to the world, people are thinking: `Why you would bother with it?'"
How accommodating?
"The war. Christians don't have a problem with the war .... The other accommodation of the church is money. Christians think we need a lot of it. They want to be upper middle-class and believe in Jesus, too.
"They worry about how gays are destroying the family and don't get the fact that what's destroying the family is money — not gays."
A block from Duke University, in a poor black neighbourhood, is another new monastic community.
Ten people, blacks and whites, share meals and open their doors to neighbours in need. Recently released prisoners and people who have lost their apartments because they couldn't pay the rent have been invited to stay.
The Durham monastics have been inspired in part by the Catholic Worker Movement, which also has a community in Toronto that includes James Loney, one of the four Christian peacemakers who were taken hostage in Baghdad on Nov. 26.
Catholic Worker groups stress hospitality, voluntary poverty, prayer and community living.
Back in Parkdale, where life together is only a few months old, the two couples are still sorting out exactly how they will practise their new monasticism as they get to know their neighbourhood, find work and welcome a new baby into their midst.
"But we have prayed about this a lot," says Ben ElzingaCheng. "This is the right thing to do."
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
waiting for Elijah
Jessica spent New Year's here and a good time was had by all.
We really need to consider our next steps as a community. We have room for one more person. We wonder if we should fill it or whether we should save it for Elijah.
We are in a rushrushwaitwait sort of pattern right at the moment.
So, I have been trying to remind myself to do the good that is set out before me. However, I don't want that to devolve into some pitiful Calvinist ethic (sorry to all my Calvin friends) whereby we fulfill our calling by being a petty bureaucrat for the state (I think a street sweep might actually be a holy occupation.) I guess what I am left wondering is if I should be out there chasing down Jesus or if I ask hard enough he might just come knocking on my door. Behold, I stand....and I was everywhere naked, and hungry, sick and worn.... How have I got to this point where I can't see him. Ok. So, this is the sort of introspection I promised myself I wouldn't bother the blog with. However, I'm going to end with prayer and I hope you can pray with me.
Lord, help me to stop being such a shortsighted, caught up in my own worried world, fool. Please help me to stop being so suspicious of all the people you bring into my life: catergorizing them, judging them, dispensing with them... Allow me to come into the bold faith of one of your true disciples and please fill me with your love that (truly) moves the world and each of us to eternal life with you. Amen.
Any New Year's resolutions you would care to share?
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