I Favor A Communal Life

Yesterday was one of my dream days. If I were to describe a perfect day of ordinary life, it would be yesterday. Part of this journey toward a simpler life involves simplifying our life down to one income. We have significant school debt we are trying to knock out as quickly as we can in order to do this. There are dreams even beyond that big step that involve living on less, but those dreams are too big for me to put into words right now.

So yesterday was a sneak peak at what that kind of life might look like for us. Greg went to work for a couple hours and then came home since their office closed. He was able to get a lot of schoolwork done, which was a plus for him. I spent the morning cleaning up the kitchen and living room and then baking some pumpkin bread with some of my preserved pumpkin purée.

(The recipe from Simply in Seaason is very tasty. I substituted all of the oil and some of the pumpkin purée for applesauce. I also substituted a 1/4^th of a cup of white flour for ground flax seed.) I then spent time delivering the bread to some friends and had an impromptu visit while one friend ate lunch with her boys. What a delight to get to drop by a friend’s house in the middle of the day and get invited in for a visit.

I came home to a warm lunch my husband had prepared and then spent some much needed time sorting photos that date back to 1987.

I was almost done with my photos when a friend knocked on the door. She had her two kids with her at work all day since their school was canceled and she had another friend’s sick child with her. She needed some help getting them all down for naps. I hoped in her car and rode the two minutes to her house and shortly there after was rocking a baby to sleep in my arms while singing What A Wonderful World.

At home I finished sorting photos and finished knitting a baby hat

while my husband put dinner on the table. We finished a couple loads of laundry and then nestled down for the evening as the temperatures dropped even further. It’s a good thing we did all of those dishes and laundry because this morning we woke up to frozen pipes and rolling brown-outs. We nestled in a little longer.

Surprisingly, work was not canceled today but we did go in a little later. I took a shower at a friend’s house and another friend has offered her mother-in-law suite for us to stay in until we get flowing water.

I have yet to express any of my religious beliefs yet in this blog. I can say here though, that I believe that God calls us to a life lived in community. It is a rare gift to get to call upon and be called upon by a community of people in times of need. We live such independent lives in this culture and are afraid to rely on anyone else for fear of imposition. I plan on breaking that trend. This life cannot be lived in isolation. I for one am grateful for that chance to have an impromptu lunch with a friend, rock a baby to sleep and borrow a shower.