Update

I haven't posted in a long time. Heck, I haven't written anything at all in a long time. It's been several months now since I left Bread & Roses.

The new job is going well. I'm a half-time homeless outreach worker now, and I enjoy having work to do that I am familiar with and good at. The administration and the other staff at FSC rock.

The new home is way too quiet. We each - Meta, Selena, and myself - strain against the stillness a bit. An old friend from Bread & Roses is homeless again, and Selena mentioned to me that she was sorely tempted to bring him home.

Sometimes, when I get home from work, having given out several sleeping bags and tarps to families with little children, I look around at the scattered books, the fruit bowl on the dining table, my boots in the corner, and the couch in my living room and wonder to myself, "What in the heavens am I doing here?" I can't shake the feeling that this house has no purpose or redeeming value.

Dorothy Day once took six months away from the Catholic Worker, to make up her mind about her vocation. She did, of course, come back to her home in the Worker. But I wonder, in that six months, if she felt anything like this? Stranded away from home, without a sense of purpose, without a center? Did she feel tired and aimless in the evenings? Did she miss some particular guest whose antics put a little grin on her lips near the end of a chaotic and turbulent day? Did she miss the chaos?

I've taken to reading a lot in our year away. I read the whole Harry Potter series in about a week, along with my normal fare of philosophers and theologians. I've also been reading quite a number of beginner's gardening books. We hope to grow a great deal of our own food at the new house when we move again next May.

Our cats do seem to like it here. We live on the edge of a great big wilderness park, a watershed that breeds multitudes of spiders and moths the size of small birds. The older cat, Benny, is always bringing us "gifts" that he caught out in the woods.

In spite of the quiet order at home, I've managed to keep pretty busy. My church is hosting the local tent city right now, and I've been involved there a bit. Meta's mayoral campaign is going gangbusters, and we're frequently off to house-party fund raisers, progressive interest's picnics, and such. I've been putting in extra hours at work for our end of year report for the funders, and also working on my mother's house occasionally.

I will try to keep up with the blog. I'm reading the Brothers Karamozov right now, and recently finished a couple books from the French Personalists, and I think I've got a few things to say about the reading. I'll catch up next time...