Aww, Labri!

Well, we have finished our nine day stay at the Massachusetts L'Abri.  The building made me feel like I was living in a Jane Austin novel!  We had a lovely time and met some wonderful people.  We were one of two married couples, and nearly everyone else happened to be single, female, introverted English majors in their early twenties, with seventeen people in total for most of our stay.  They didn't all come together.  That's just the random bunch this term happened to attract.

My experience this time was quite different from last time, when I went to the Swiss L'Abri in 2007.  But of course it would be.  There was no intellectual dick-swinging during free time this time (which, I must admit, slightly disappointed me.  There aren't many uses for my Honours Religious Studies degree but that would have been one of them).

It had more of a Bible-collegey-isn't-it-great-we-all-love-Jesus-so-much feel than last time too.  I found that a little exasperating, because I was really looking forward to being at a place where Christianity and intellectual honesty can eat at the same table amicably.  Of course, a place where it is perfectly okay to ask questions and not be sure of what you believe is what L'Abri is going for, but with so many students so apparently sure of what they believe, it changes the culture of the term a bit.  I'm sure people will open up more as the term goes on though.

Personally, I had a hard time nailing down one question to focus on.  I realized I had many, many questions that were not necessarily connected, like a big tangled ball of necklaces.  Chris and I seriously discussed the idea of me staying there by myself until November and I was tempted to do so.  I know I could have become great friends with at least a few of those women and it would have been helpful to spend some time focussing on confronting my relationship with my religion, but I also knew that this community, warm and fuzzy as it was, was very temporary, and that more than anything right now, I crave setting down some roots.  Spending three months apart is also kind of a lame way of commencing our second year of marriage.

Despite our stay being so short, I learned a lot.  I learned that I love Wendell Berry's writing and want to read more, I gained a renewed passion for reading in general, I had some encouraging conversations with others who had lived in or are currently living in community in their everyday lives, I became more comfortable with where I'm at spiritually, I had a lot of time to reflect on who I want to be after this trip is over, and I picked up a FABULOUS recipe for pumpkin chocolate chip muffins!

On a somewhat related note, I discovered an excellent comic on the value of questions and answers today: A Day at the Park.  A lot of it reflects quite well what my internal dialogue sounded like while at L'Abri.