Problems are for Solving

Last night was our annual celebration that we call The Night of the Burning Plum. There is history behind this (you can read more here), and this is our fourth celebration of the night.

We had a big ham, horseradish spiced mashed potatoes and a raspberry/walnut/gorganzola salad with a vinegrette. It were all *delicious*. Accompanying dinner was a mixture of plum wine and homemade sparkling mead. Also quite tasty.

For dessert we had our traditional Flaming Plums and Cherries served over vanilla ice cream and 8 year old Plum Brandy. It was lovely. Ralph brought some cream Sherry from the winery near where many of used to live in Pennsylvania which was also quite tasty.

After dessert and conversation we adjourned into the newly painted Plum Living Room for our tradition of telling stories. The children told many stories, including one from Toby that had Cthulu, Agent X, and Dr. Frankenstein. Their story telling has vastly improved over the four years and I’m glad for this tradition. Seth told his usual three stories, and we all shared in a lovely time (you can read Gabrielle’s story from last night here).

After all this we did a little cleaning up and then most went to bed and a few of us wandered down to Seth & Crystal’s for some Jungle Speed (which I won more times than I usually do against Seth and Ralph!).

Of the family traditions we’ve begun since our family was founded, this is by far my favorite. Next year, the 5th annual Night of the Burning Plum promises to be even better. I’m already starting to think of changes to the evening (minor, improving changes!) in preparation.

All in all, another lovely night, and a grand annual celebration of friendship. Hopefully those who couldn’t make it this year will be available in 2009.

I’ve been a bit under the weather this week (I had to take a day off in fact) and so I’m looking forward to our annual celebration of the Night of the Burning Plum. I will, Lord willing, get a post up in the next couple of days detailing this year’s event, but for now:

A Road Less Travelled » The Night of the Burning Plum (Gabrielle)

A Road Less Travelled » Thoughts on the Burning Plum (Raquel)

A Road Less Travelled » The Night of the Burning Plum 2006 (Gabrielle)

Well, we had a lot of people over tonight. Two families. Dinner with the Ben-Ezras tonight was dinner with the Ben-Ezras and the Evans.

Grace Katherine brought home-made bread (mmmm was it good!) and the Nezzers brought salad to have with the soup that we made.

It was a nice meal, albeit loud, and we were joined by Kathey. That’s 9 Evans, 8 Ben-Ezras, Kathey, and my 9. 27 all told including little Margary who gets hers later.

Here’s the scratch sheet I used to figure out where everyone would sit:

A wonderful time was had by all.

People, “non-people� and “family� all congregate at Ebenezer House (my home) one Friday every month for game night.

We used to meet at our church’s building but thought that the homey feel of being in the neighborhood was nicer. Plus we’re hoping this becomes as much of a neighborhood event as it is one our church enjoys.

Game night is something that we enjoy and is different each month. Many different people come and we play different games* each month. We start with a meal, thinking that this is important that eating together breeds the right kind of fellowship for the competition of games later.

This month we had the Ben-Ezras and Lansberrys as usual, and we were joined by Pastor Ben-Ezra (Seth’s dad), two adult singles and a family from our church and a new family who found out about the event from a local homeschool e-group.

Seth taught a group of people Tikal and then settled in to play Tigris and Euphrates with another group of us. The kids love Fireball Island and I know a game of Inegenious broke out in the kitchen.

We broke up late this month (we start at 6 with dinner and usually get done about 9 or 9:30) but everyone had a great time. Part of community is doing things together and game night is just one more way we’re building relationships and being with one another in a way that challenges us to pursue love and good works together.

* There are specific types of games we play. We go for something that is at least three players, as many as six or eight, and that is easily taught. (Easily taught is no the same thing as easily mastered, btw.) We look for imaginative games. Most of the games we play are not produced by Parker Brothers but by European game designers (the Germans are well known for games like Carcassonne). You can find all of the games we’ve played (and many more) at Just For Fun here in Peoria.

Earlier this week I wrote about people and “non-people” and alluded to writing again about “family.”?

Last night we had the Ben-Ezras over for dinner. We try to do this every week because the Ben-Ezras are not only “non-people”? but they’re “family.”? We decided when the Ben-Ezras moved here in 2002 that we would need to reach out to them since they were moving so far away from their family in Pennsylvania. There is more to this story, but the Ben-Ezra family and I go back quite a ways and their father was my pastor and mentor and is still a dear friend.

“Family”? are friends and family around whom you can totally be yourself without fear that they’ll hate you tomorrow. When they arrive for dinner and ask if they can do anything you’ll feel free without the slightest hesitation to ask one of them to sweep the dining room while reminding her that the last time (or was it 10 times ago?) she swept your dining room (while over for dinner) the broom suddenly broke in her hands.

Last night was, as it always is, a treat. We feasted around the dining room table. The children (except Moriah and Noah who are 10 and 2 respectively) ate on the porch since it was so nice and we enjoyed a slightly quieter dinner than normal, but no less interrupted. Gabrielle’s account gives a good picture of what the evening looked like, but I want to hone in on a couple of things she left out.

With “family”? there is no stress. No masks. No forced conversation. All flows, even when interrupted and when multiple conversations go on at once. We are truly ourselves when we are around “family.”?

We can be truly ourselves because they already know who we are and they love us anyway. Every week I realize that I know the people around this particular family gathering better than I thought I knew them, and better than the week before.

Last night we had a discussion of NDS (Noun Deficiency Syndrome) which afflicts nearly 100% of parents and adults who spend large amounts of time around children. Why is this universal, that even those of us who talk to TV cameras for national television or get up in front of thousands of people without an accelerated heartbeat turn into blithering idiots when speaking to children?

“Move the thing! And . . . the other thing!”?

And knowing one another means we can in jest call the person who tries to make fun of the joke in order to cover up the embarrassment of not recognizing that quote from The Princess Bride. Because only in a group such as this would one even be tempted to be embarrassed at missing a quote from The Princess Bride and only in a group such as this would one be able to laugh when called on the embarrassment.

“Family”? love one another. Period.

And the relaxed feeling at supper with “family”? comes from the knowledge deep down in our hearts that no matter how stupid I am tonight or any night they will come back and it will be a joy still. And that knowledge comes from knowing that our Father, our true family in heaven, and these dear friends we call “family”? love us not because of who we are or how we act.

They simply love us. Not because, or for, or through or beside anything. They love us. Period.

Note: I edited this to make it a little shorter. I’ll include more on a similar topic later this week.

Tuesday night we had another family from our church over for dinner. It was a lot of fun. Raquel and Gabrielle have a whole topic devoted to dinner at our house. We try to have people over a lot because we can. We have a big dining room and want to be with people (I’ll write more about “being with one another� in a future post).

Well last night we had people over for dinner. I call them “people,� but they have a great potential to be “non-people.� In my mind there are three categories of people who come to your house, “people,� “non-people� and “family.� The categorization refers to your reaction to their showing up at the door or your preparations for their doing so but mostly your internal attitude and feelings about their coming over in the first place.

“People� are those who you lack some degree of comfort around. You’re likely to clean up the house as best you can (spotless is best for your own maximum comfort) and put the best foot forward. By “best foot forward� I mean that when they arrive the house should look absolutely nothing like it looks on a normal day. “They wouldn’t understand,� you reason. “They wouldn’t understand that my children don’t always put their toys away. They wouldn’t understand that when my children play outside they get dirty!�

This is what we tell ourselves and so we lock our children in a trunk, clean the house, and have dinner catered by some fancy French restaurant so that they won’t have to “understand.�

Obviously none of us have gone that far, but I think the example gives you an idea of what having “people� over means.

“Non-people� is a bit more complicated.

We get the phrase “non-people” from an event that happened years ago. After we moved up from South Carolina we were scheduling a trip back and wanted to see some friends. We contacted one of our friends who had the idea of organizing a group of families getting together all at once. Tammy (the wife in this particular family) contacted Emily (the other wife) and asked if they could do it at her house. She said yes.

During the afternoon she began to be stressed at the number of people that would be eating there that evening. It was something akin to 20 or more. “How am I going to entertain all of these people?” she asked herself with great strain. And then she thought, “oh wait–we’re not having people over, it’s just the Lansberrys and the Northrops!”

Hense the term, “non-people.”

“Non-people� are those who we are more relaxed around, those who could stop in unexpectedly on a typical day and we wouldn’t bat an eyelash at letting them see our living room even if it’s in the worst condition it’s been in all month because the dog just got inside (perhaps one of the children opened the door?) after rolling around in the mud and has been trying to get clean by wiping his back on the nice duvet cover you just got dry cleaned and back on the living room couch. They are someone who you might think, “oh I’m not having people over tonight, it’s just the so-and-so’s� instead of stressing out that “they wouldn’t understand.�

“Family� I will deal with in a post later this week.

The family we had over last night was wonderful to be around. We had a joyful time and though we haven’t known them very long they were easy to be around and relaxed even though dinner was a bit late and the house wasn’t quite where we’d hoped. They are well on their way to being “non-people.�

Within an authentic community all of us ought to be relaxed around one another. We ought to be so confident in our love and grace for one another that we’ll know our friends won’t assume the worst about the mud on the floor, but rather assume the best (like the dog and the duvet cover). Everyone within a particular community that has been a part of it for a while ought to feel free to stop by unannounced knowing that we’ll be direct about whether we have time to talk or whatever. We ought to be “non-people� to one another. We won’t achieve “family� status with everyone. Even Jesus had three disciples that he spent more time with than others, but achieving “non-people� status and the relaxed relationships that come with it ought to be our goal with everyone in a given covenant community.

I mentioned when I started this blog that one of the chief topics I hope to do serious writing on is community. I realized this morning that discussing community in the abstract is part of the reason we don’t enjoy more of it. I could sit here and define community while I type (but when there’s dictionary.com, why do that), but what most of us really need is not a dictionary definition but a painting.

Community is something foreign to most of us American rugged individualists because we haven’t really seen it working in front of us.

So, as part of writing on community I’m going to tell you stories and sprinkle principles of what I think is Biblical community within the stories. Being as uncreative as I am, these will most often be true stories of what actually happens as we try to build a community right here in the University East neighborhood in Peoria, IL. I’ll get abstract along the way, but mostly you’ll see what I believe is crucial to authentic community nested into what we are actually doing.