what I asked for

I am smack dab in the middle of experiencing community, in all its challenge and glory.

Occasionally, in the midst of it all, I need to step back and remind myself that I *wanted* this, that this human messiness is exactly what I signed up for - being involved in the lives of others, mattering to people on a daily level, choosing mutual responsibility even knowing that we are humans and weak and that eventually I would let them down and they would let me down and then we'd be faced with the challenge of picking each other up.

There have been some challenges these past couple of days:
- The identity issues - what kind of an organization are we? How much are we willing to go out of our comfort zones in order not to exclude someone who's had way more than his share of exclusion? And how open-minded can I be about what I perceive as closed-mindedness?
- The downsides of consensus: one individual claiming a disproportionate amount of power.
- The nasty, nasty disgustingness of things inhabiting the bathroom sink that should never, ever be in the bathroom sink.
- The mysteries - who moved the robin's nest? Did the babies get a chance to fledge before they were evicted?

And there have been the wonderful moments of being and belonging and living in the place that resonates with my core values:
- The pets that have inexplicably decided to befriend me all at once.
- A long walk with a new friend.
- The erasure of a hermeneutic of suspicion that had overshadowed a particular relationship until I spoke my mind and shattered a stereotype I had only suspected was there.
- The joy of a very well-timed hug.

Despite the messiness, because of the messiness, I still love it here.