Favourite moments from the trip

It's been five weeks since we got back. I've recovered from the hemisphere change... we went from 30+ degrees to a mid-winter storm. From light at 10.30pm in Berlin to 5.30pm in Wellington!

But now I've got my head back, I'm reminiscing about some of the great moments.

North America

• Mexican in the Mission, SF.
• Resting at Rivendell Retreat, Bowen Island, Vancouver.
• Hanging out with our friend Maria in a different continent.
• School of Rock, on Broadway
• Spending way too short a time at the wonderful Metropolitan Museum.
• Dinner at Diana's apartment in Chelsea, NYC (a co-worker from Aquarium of the Bay, SF circa 2003)
• The view from the Top of The Rock
• A bike tour through Central Park
• The hospitality at Foxhill Bruderhof Community

UK

• Some deep thought time at English L'Abri
• Staying with my friend Phil and his family in Teddington, London.
• The view from The Shard
• An open top bus tour of London.
• The UK train system.
• Visiting Shakespeare's home just out of Birmingham
• Staying at the Victorian seaside village of Swannage and visiting Corfe Castle.
• Getting blasted by seaspray from the first hovercraft I've ever seen, in Portsmouth.

Europe

• Awe struck by the Sacre Coeur and Notre Dame Cathedral's (a building that's about 900 years old)
• The view from the Eiffel Tower
• Taking in the beauty of the city's architecture from an open top bus.
• Amazing savoury crepes el fresco on a stone paved narrow alleyway.
• The Louvre.
• My first high speed train from Paris.
• Taize community and bumping in to friends from Wellington!
• Seeing some really old buildings in Cluny, Burgundy.
• Walking through Roman ruins in Lyon.
• Popping in to Brussels for a few hours to taste Belgium waffles, chocolate and beer! (and avoiding the Central Station terrorist by 3 hours!)
• The Berlin Wall.
• Visiting the Jewish memorial, harrowing but essential.
• Berlin's transport system, so easy to get around!
• Lying on the abandoned runway at the historically significant Templehof airport.
• Buying my first pair of barefoot shoes. So comfy!
• Flat whites with Kiwi friends

Japan

• Staying with our friends Nina and Andy
• The food. So good!
• Walking across the busiest intersection in the world!
• Not getting lost!
• Staying and working on a Green tea farm with a four generation family.

// 66 days

// 20 beds

// 14 towns

// 9 flights

// and I don't know how many buses and trains!

Taize Community

Taize was the third and final community on our sabbatical agenda. This was the community we booked in first and because I've sung their songs a lot in our community, definitely expected a great experience (whereas the other communities we knew very little about).

Taize is another community with more than 50 years history (all three communities we visited). And over that 50 years it has attracted a massive youth following, mainly by accident it seems! Brother Roger (a protestant) originally came to the town of Taize in Burgundy after WWII as he wanted to help rebuild France. Through a long series of events he helped to found an ecumenical monastic order which accidentally got the attention of youth from all over Europe (and now the world). So, although the monastic life is the primary focus of the brothers, youth come a close second!

With the youth a high priority (sometimes there are 5000 young people visiting in a week...!) its not surprising that they're the focus! That means that those of us who are over 30 are in a different area and come together with the young people for prayers. Lots of people try to get to Taize before they are 30 to experience the youth version but I was pretty happy with the smaller adult group.

With the focus on youth it also means there's a little more structure and rules than I was used to but each of the rules has been created to help make things run smoothly or to help people feel accepted and included. In fact, much of the way of life at Taize has been formed around that philosophy. We had a chance to meet one of the brothers and had all kinds of questions for him. We found that most of the peculiar things we'd seen had a particular reason for being that way and usually related to making the place feel comfortable for everyone. eg. The orthodox "onion rings" on top of the church were first added when the Iron Curtain fell and many young people started coming from Eastern Europe.

The standard rhythm of the day is:
- 8.15am prayers in the church (prayers are sung, and these are the songs that have become popular around the world)
- 9am breakfast
- 10am Bible teaching from a brother
- 12.20pm Prayers
- 1pm lunch
- 2pm optional singing practise
- 5pm tea with youth
- 7pm evening meal
- 8.30pm evening prayer

In amongst that was a time chosen by our small group to meet up and discuss the 10am session and a time for chores with the group. Our chore was breakfast prep which meant getting up a bit earlier.

Once I got over the initial novelty of finally making it to Taize (it was one of the main places I wanted to get to on this trip, there was only 500 people at the start and Sarah and I had our own cabin which we weren't expecting) I have to admit I struggled for the first few days. I always knew there'd be some culture shock seeing as we'd just spent four nights in Paris! But it was more than that... there were way less familiar songs that were in various foreign languages and the one song practise I did with four part harmonies made it seem even more complex! Then there was the various rules (like the limited times the shop and nature area were open), the feeling that I hadn't had enough solo time on the trip (this was about week 6 and we're great travel buddies but I needed some time in my head) and a conversation with a climate sceptic which grated on me no end!(I managed to keep my thoughts to myself). Needing to be in certain places at certain times also drained me a bit.

But the good news won out. As I became more familiar with the routine and the songs, instead of draining me they gave me new life (this was actually a surprise, in hindsight I should've known it'd take at least a few days!). I got some good sleep, some solo time, and I began to enjoy the rhythms. I didn't have to worry about trains and planes, food and currency, languages, cultures and how to flush the toilet! I also became aware that, although singing these songs in a large group at the source was really good, it still didn't feel as comfy as singing them with my own people. It amused me quite a bit that I had to fly to the other side of the world to figure that out!

The standard time to stay at Taize (and the maximum time) is 7 days and we were fortunate that we were able to stay that length. From Sunday to Sunday. Its just the right amount of time to have gained some familiarity and comfort with life at Taize without getting frustrated at some of the limitations of camping with so many people!

English L'Abri

We stayed at English L'Abri for 4 nights and then 3 nights, separated by travel to London, Birmingham, Swannage and Portsmouth.

We met a couple of pastors who were staying their for an extended length to do some sabbatical time but the majority of the guests/students were there to spend time searching. Searching for answers to life's hard questions, the original intention behind the story of L'Abri's establishment in Switzerland.

The students all live in a very large manor house that was given to L'abri in the 70s. There's a daily and weekly rhythm and structure to the community life. Most days there are household chores for the students in the morning or afternoon. Lunch is usually a discussion around a question or topic anyone can suggest. Dinner is usually at one of the workers houses. Apart from the Manor house there are other surrounding accommodation as well so that all the workers live very close. There are often lectures twice a week by the workers on topics that stimulate thought and discussion.

I was surprised that community life itself wasn't really the focus here. That is, the "workers," ten people who support the students learning and discovery, orient their lives around that focus, and much less around their own life together. The founders of L'Abri in the 50s, Francis and Edith Schaeffer, didn't want to setup rhythms and routines that could sustain the community without faith. So the workers don't tend to have work outside of the community and don't advertise for funding or workers.

Ideally we would've spent more time here, a refrain repeated on numerous occasions on this trip! Two weeks would've been great, if not more, then we would've had more time for study and getting to know people. More time to get in to the rhythms. Oh well, we enjoyed and had some stimulating thoughts and reflections from this time and would recommend it to others.

Theory of travel relativity

Here I am in Berlin day 1 and I haven't blogged since the U.S! I can't believe we've only been away for 7 weeks as it feels much longer! Every day is filled with new discoveries and challenges, trains, planes, languages, cultures, architecture, currencies, planning and on and on.

I'm incredibly grateful for this amazing adventure and certainly feel like I'll go home with a new perspective on the world and our place in it.

Since last post we've been to English L'Abri community south of London, London (staying with friends and doing some tourism), Birmingham and Swannage (to visit extended family), Portsmouth, Paris, Taize Community and Lyon. Phew!

What makes it tick?

The Bruderhof were originally formed around World War 1 in Germany by a man called Eberhard Arnold and his family. There has been various influxes of people often around times of persecution (they were pacifist from the beginning). They escaped Germany and then England, and lived in Paraguay, the only country that would take them, for more than a decade! In Paraguay they lived with very little and a lot of hardship. Eventually they made it to the U.S in the 50s.

From the little I picked up it seemed like these were some of the aspects that helped make the community tick:

• Members are the life blood of the community. 
• You can't ask for membership until you're over 21.
• Once you ask there's a discernment process that can take a while to make sure both sides are certain of the right decision. There needs to be a unanimous vote of members to be added.
• Members make life long commitments to go where ever they're asked to go and do whatever they're asked to do. This means people are often moved to different communities within the movement to provide their skills there. eg. if a new community is setup they'll need builders plumbers electricians etc but later they'll need different skills. Many people I spoke to had been at the community in either Australia or the UK, (which was a bonus as they mostly understood our accent!)
• If a certain skill is missing someone with the aptitude may be asked to get educated in that skill. eg. a farmer was retrained as a dentist! And it sounded like that move worked well.
• Most essential supplies are on hand. Most food (including cows, chickens and eggs) are grown on the 800 acre property or at one of the other communities.
• Large harvests of food are frozen or canned to last in to winter. They harvest 100's of pounds of berries and honey for instance.
• If you get referred to an outside medical professional or need something else from the shops, book one of the fleet of cars and sign out some cash from the community steward.
• There's an on site medical centre with on call doctor. There's also a dentist and dental hygienist who are not limited by cost or politics so they are constantly looking for the latest technology to make sure their people are getting the best treatment possible. In some cases they are using techniques that are cutting edge that other American dentists are interested in as they'd upset their business model.
• People don't use computer technology in their homes including mobile phones and tv.
• Gender roles are traditional and they all where very modest clothing including head coverings for the woman.

A day in the life

• Breakfast at 6am
• Men and children over 6 weeks go to work or childcare/school
• Woman clean house then go to work at 9
• Snack is at 10
• Whole community lunch happens in the main dining room at 12.30. There may be a few announcements most  people help with clean up in the massive kitchen (there's a separate kitchen for special diets, cool eh?!) and dishes rooms.
• Men go back to work after lunch and woman and the seniors (I guess somewhere around 70+) start work at 2.
• Snack at 3.15 (when the high school kids get back from their 45 mins bus ride from the Bruderhof school)
• Finish at 5
• I didn't figure out exactly what happens with dinner. Sometimes they don't have dinner as they decided a while ago to forego some meals in solidarity with people who have a lot less food to eat.
• Often there is a meeting at 7pm inside or outside depending on the weather. Different things happen at each meeting. We went to two, one had singing and bring your own instrument the other two nights a week are family dinners which was requested by teenagers a few years back as they wanted more family time.

The gist of the Bruderhof community

Here's a quick run down of the wider community which seems fairly in line with what I've heard. "Full community of goods" = Common purse. ie. No one has any personal money everything is shared.

The gist is that they're trying to live a life that was first articulated by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, and the essence of that is to love one another, Everything else comes after that. There is a lot of other amazing things here to talk about but many people have wanted to emphasise that to us, that the well functioning community life all comes down to that first priority.

A special welcome

We're having a kindof community experience that I've never had before.
You know that time when you're sitting in a crowd of people you don't know and no one talks to you...? Or the time when you're hosted by people you know are super busy and tired and so you don't want to trouble them? Well, this is not one of those experiences!

This week we've been welcomed like I've never been welcomed before! The resident to guest ratio has been 100:1 (seriously!!) and most of those residents are keen to introduce themselves and swap stories and hear about our interest and experience of community. That means we've needed to manage our people time as we've been getting breakfast, lunch and dinner dates! We've certainly learned a lot about how this place runs and its on a scale I've never seen before. The whole movement has been running for more than 90 years, started in Germany and there are now more than 2500 people in 28 locations. The community we're in is one of 14 large communities (more than 150 people).

I'm hoping I'll have time to write a few posts about the place. I've only been here for less than a week so obviously I don't have the full picture but what I have seen is quite the story! There's a lot more to it that I can tell, all the ups and down of community relationships can't be picked up in a week or blogged in a few posts, so, just assume there's as many hard times as the amazing positive stories I'll tell here.

North America

We've been travelling for 2 weeks already! so much for posting regularly like previous trips!
Here's a brief run down, see Sarah's blog for more details.

• San Fran, 2 nights to see a few sights and a bit of time for me to revisit and reminisce. Once again I rode the Golden Gate bridge, its hard to beat! We also stayed at the Embassy Network which has a loose connection with my work network called Enspiral. Was interesting to get a glimpse of how they operate and their massive North American fridge with an open door policy to help yourself.
• Vancouver, 10 nights to catch up with Maria from the Greenhaus, see some sights and spend some time resting and reflecting at Rivendell retreat on Bowen Island.
• New York - 4 nights to see it for the first time. It's a crazy city that could've kept us busy for weeks! Some of the highlights for me were School of Rock on Broadway with legendary 10 year olds playing the instruments for real. The view from "30 Rock" or "Top of the rock," the Rockefeller Centre from mid town Manhatten was amazing! The Met / Metropolitan museum which is one of the biggest and most visited museums in the world and we could've easily spent multiple days in that one place, let alone the other mile of musuems...!

Now we're based at a Bruderhof community 1.5 hours north of NYC.

On the road again

Sarah and I are heading on a world trip. We're going to visit some friends, communities and a few cities on the way. Here's our plan from May 2:

- San Fran
- Vancouver and Rivendel retreat
- NYC and then a Bruderhof community
- London and L'abri and other UK
- Paris
- Taize
- Travelling from Taize to Berlin over a few days
- Berlin
- Tokyo and possible wwoofing in the country