Finishing Up

My time here at the Maranatha House of L'Arche Stratford is coming to end. In this packed cocktail of emotions I am experiencing, I've deemed my time here very valuable and freeing. As I am writing this, everyone is in bed except Neil who just got up to put some random items in his room out into the hall. He does this every night, and over the months here I've come to understand this action as more than a humourous ritual, but as something that makes Neil really unique. The way the Neil and the other members of this household comfortably live out their uniqueness and faithfulness to who they really are creates not only troubles at times, but also a great environment where I as an assistant can receive a deep gift from them. That gift is permission for me to embrace who I am a deep level. It's a gift found in the radicalism of the core members, and how they live their lives of what Henri Nouwen describes as "passion". I leave here with the sadness of friendships that have been so life giving to me ending, but in the coming distance I know I will grow to value and hold onto the gifts everyone has given me here even more than I ever could here.