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Greatham L’Abri Newsletter Decemeber 2007

Dear friends

The last of our abundant crop of apples still cling bravely to bare November branches as we bid farewell to autumn. With the coming of winter, we will also soon be saying goodbye to all those who have lived with us over the past three months. Parting with strangers who have become our friends is a dance we partake in here at L’Abri, between sweetness and bitterness, receiving and letting go. When we give hospitality in the fullest sense, it is not just our homes we open, but our interior self.

I have especially enjoyed the creativity of our community this autumn. Many have made our lives rich with music, poetry, theatre and art. It is encouraging to see people deepening in their inner lives as they come alive to the small and ordinary things which make up reality. During our Film Festival, organised by Jim, there was an influx of local people who flooded in from London and the surrounding area to think and talk about all aspects of the arts (including, of course, film). Ellis Potter spoke and a giant ‘screen’ was erected in the local village hall by Doug and students. (The screen was really sheets of plywood painted and cleverly supported on scaffolding)! At our lunch table that day we talked about the centrality of artistic expression and response for every person. We wondered if in each artistic action we proclaim our true humanity, becoming alive to the mystery of God’s Spirit as he ’hovered over the face of the waters’ in creation. The Festival brought us into contact with many who had no prior involvement with L’Abri. Several visitors expressed an interest in returning as students. We are thankful for this and other opportunities which take us beyond the regular L’Abri circle.

Several workers have been invited to lecture at a variety of universities, schools and other venues:
Edith – at a senior school for their Philosophy Society about Nietzsche
Jim and Edith – who hosted a day visit of 6th formers from a north London school here at L’Abri
Jim – at a Sheffield ‘café – style’ apologetic event
Jim – in South Africa (this December) at a training week for locals hosted by
Andrew and Deidre Duminy. Jim will both give some L’Abri lectures and lead some film discussions.
Stefan – at a local Bible College on ‘Radical Orthodoxy’
Edith, Stefan and Lois also had invitations to lecture at the Swedish, Dutch and Swiss L’Abris.

Whilst apples ripen and fall from old gnarled trees, and students leave the old Manor House empty, workers experience new chapters in their old story together. The team was sad to say farewell to Heather and Jeff Dryden on their departure back to the United States, yet thankful for the way they had given so much of themselves to the L’Abri community over the years. They have now found a house in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where Jeff has started teaching at Covenant College. Heather has been helping the children to settle in. Willem loves his new school, where he is definitely in an ethnic minority!

Upon their departure, Doug and I were welcomed back after our demanding time in Canada. Although I have just worked one term with my new partners in Greatham, I am deeply thankful for the humility, grace and warmth they demonstrate to me, to each other and to our guests. I believe it is vividly apparent to those, like myself, coming in fresh from the outside, that here there is a culture of friendship, and true friendship is a holy thing. It is a holy thing to see Jim out on the lawn on a misty day with his little son, students and friends having a wild, laughter- filled game of football. It is a holy thing to hear one of our workers saying to another, ’I’m sorry I said that. I was wrong’. And it is a holy thing when someone who was a stranger finds a family.

For many here the Carvalho family became friends over the six months they were here. Guilherme, Alessandra and their friend, Rodolfo, had come as students/workers-in-training. They returned recently to their home country, Brazil, with a deep desire for a L’Abri to grow and flourish there. They are now waiting and praying for God to show them how to move forward.

Lois and Stefan are also waiting patiently. They have entered into that most joyful sate – waiting on the birth of their first child who is to be born in the spring. It is most fitting that Lois, with her clear bell-like voice, sang a new setting of the Magnificat this Advent Sunday in ancient St. Peter’s Church, where Christ has been worshipped for a thousand years.

This term, as indeed with every term, students’ needs often seem overwhelming. As we listen to them in the presence of God, we are thankful that we are not alone. We have each other as a team, and ‘underneath us are the everlasting arms’. We are keenly aware the God’s work in people’s lives is often painful. Like midwives, we companion birth to new life, which often looks and feels like death. We must wait patiently for God’s supernatural timing rather than forcing a quick, but maybe superficial solution. As we work, we must remember that it is far better to find God in a desperate place, even a place of despair, than to live easy lives of complacency, yet never feel the need for mercy.

Our sumptuous Thanksgiving banquet was far more than the fresh turkeys and pies, wonderful as they were. Looking around the candle-lit table, we each gave thanks for something personal as we dropped a single kernel of corn into a pottery goblet. Even though I knew that everyone there represented some kind of secret struggle or sorrow, everyone also represented God, at table with us.

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