Every fall AKW gives her English students an assignment based on the Margaret Laurence story The Sound of the Singing. The title of the assignment is taken from a line in the story: …the house I carry with me…
It is a fascinating concept: what is “the house I carry with me”? The place of childhood influence and formation (for better or worse)? The place which is home? Or the place which, looking back, I wish had been home. Perhaps the home I am still trying to reach - (I will return to my father's house...).
Some friends of mine have a house. I was off to visit them earlier this week. We had a great breakfast - a manly breakfast of Golden Grahams (though Chuck had something made of sticks and berries…) and buckets of coffee. The House is a kind of intentional christian community, which I am sure they will carry with them.
There is another house in the same neighbourhood, one that I have visited a few times. It is one of the local L’arche community houses. I have had the pleasure of several great mealtimes at this house. There are core members of the house (those with intellectual disabilities), and there are those who volunteer to live with them as friends, helpers, and companions. It is an intentional christian community, based on the Beatitudes.
It is a house I carry with me.
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