anniversaries, kayaks, and a sonnet
how and why we celebrate milestones (birthdays, wedding anniversaries, community anniversaries)
Welcome back readers, and welcome, new readers –
We’re in a new season – blissful summer for Trudi and Marianne, grim winter approaching for Norann. Our theme in this post is anniversaries: Norann’s home community Danthonia is turning twenty-five, and Marianne is surrounded by people celebrating fifty years of marriage.
Before reading Norann’s report of Danthonia’s anniversary, take a moment for this account by Maureen Swinger of how a community begins, the community in question is Bellvale in Orange County, New York. Marianne was one of the first six people to move in during the summer of 2001; if anything, Maureen undersells how hard we worked and how much fun we had in those first amazing months of a new community.
Norann – in Danthonia, New South Wales, Australia
Danthonia, the Bruderhof community I live at in Australia, celebrated its 25th anniversary this May. We invited friends and neighbors to come and celebrate this milestone together. Our youth group, most of whom have grown up here, had planned a uniquely Australian celebration by inviting guests to “swag it” (camp) and enjoy outdoor activities including “dinner and brekky barbies” (BBQing everything) and bonfires. But our winter weather intervened with heavy and freezing rains, high winds, and low temperatures. But, no worries. We adapted by adding a tent with heaters and swapping out the hayrides and cider pressing for indoor crafts and cookie decorating.
Guests came from near and far, and connected with many different stages of our community’s settlement journey. Besides lots of time to socialize, there was a movie with interviews from many of the earliest Danthonia members and the locals who welcomed us, and tours to look at the ways our land has restored itself through regenerative agriculture techniques.
(This video gives a good overview of Danthonia’s regenerative agriculture program.)
It was a wonderful weekend together celebrating getting through the tough stuff (droughts, fire, floods), acknowledging that for many of us this has been an adventure in obedience, giving thanks for God’s faithfulness, and for the growth of a remote community which would not have survived without its neighbors.
Marianne – in Woodcrest, upstate New York
Like Norann, I have been thinking about anniversaries, as our family has celebrated two fiftieth wedding anniversaries this year, first Kent’s parents Cristoval & Erika whose anniversary fell on Easter Sunday, and then my parents Marcus & Monika who were married on May 26 (the wedding date was chosen to align with a three-week break my mom had from medical school). Seven other Bruderhof couples also had their 50th anniversary this year.
On June 20, Woodcrest community (where I live) will have existed for 70 years, and on the same day our neighbors Milton & Sandy Zimmerman will have been married for 70 years (this is a coincidence – they were Philadelphia Quakers at the time of their wedding and came to the Bruderhof a few years later). The following day will mark 103 years since Eberhard and Emmy Arnold travelled with their five children from their Berlin townhouse to the tiny rural village of Sannerz to venture on a new life of Christian community that is today known as the Bruderhof, an event she later gave a lively account of in the essay “Community is Born.”
This time of year is also big for events in our family: between May 29 and July 1 we have five family birthdays, plus our wedding anniversary (16 years!) on June 7. All three of my sisters and one of my brothers were also married in June, and seemingly dozens of cousins have June birthdays as well.
That’s a lot of occasions, and we will celebrate every single one (and I will be slightly exhausted by the time we get to July). Birthday celebrations mostly happen with family and friends, with additional observances by classmates (for children) or colleagues at work (for grownups). But notable wedding anniversaries are celebrated both by family and the whole community. For the family part of my parents’ anniversary, we managed to collect every family member (eight children and their spouses, thirty-five grandchildren, and a number of aunts and uncles) to spend a weekend together swimming, boating, hiking, playing games, listening to favorite music, making music, looking at photo albums, cooperating with group photos for future albums, laughing till we cried. The children who were babies yesterday are now somehow teenagers and were made responsible for the big family dinner on Sunday night: cooking, decorating, and serving, this was the highlight of the weekend.
The next morning we had a family breakfast in the old style (my parents with their eight children, now each plus one); the youngest sister spilled her coffee in the usual way. Also on Monday was the community celebration, another dinner with dozens of friends and various performances.
In the past few weeks, two young couples here at Woodcrest have announced their engagement, an event that is also an occasion for a big community celebration. During one of these celebrations the uncle of the groom-to-be spoke about the “miracle of commitment” and how, over time, commitment not only protects love but helps it grow. This is true of marriage and also of membership in the church, it’s why we are here celebrating so many anniversaries of weddings and communities. The vows we make, whether at marriage or when becoming a member of the Bruderhof, are lifelong: there is no divorce in our church, and we promise to keep faith with our brothers and sisters in the church for the rest of our lives. If you truly intend to remain faithful to your promises, if walking away is never an option, the result is that nothing – no hardship, no personal failure, no misunderstanding (this might be the hardest one) – can disrupt your relationship. Living with examples of faithfulness is important too: Kent and I can look to our parents and many other couples that have been married for more decades than we have been alive and see the love and happiness that years of faithfulness have given them.
In the same way, the faithfulness of our fellow members helps hold each of us to our own vows; knowing that we’re all in it for the long haul is an incentive to resolve any differences that arise, and more importantly, knowing that we all intend to remain faithful, come what may, strengthens our love for each other. There’s a scene towards the end of CS Lewis’ That Hideous Strength where the little household community of St Anne’s on the Hill is facing grave danger the next day:
“As long as we’re all together,” said Mother Dimble. “It might be . . .no, I don’t mean anything heroic . . . it might be a nice way to die.” And suddenly all their faces and voices were changed. They were laughing again, but it was a different kind of laughter. Their love for one another became intense. Each, looking on all the rest, thought, “I’m lucky to be here. I could die with these.”
Our community now is obviously not facing imminent danger (this was not always true in Bruderhof history) and we certainly are not into heroics, but knowing that we have all mutually promised to remain (as our vows say) “loyal and true” gives rise to the same feeling: “I’m lucky to be here.”
Trudi – in Spring Valley, southwest Pennsylvania
This year my summer began with a short vacation. Coincidentally, last year it did too, just on the other side of the world, when a lady from our Yeongwol community got an invitation from an old friend in Jeju Island. She took me with her for the adventure. See Why Korea for a glimpse of that trip.
This year’s trip could be considered an anniversary trip. Trading pine trees for palms, our young adults group drove seventeen hours by bus to our small community on Tampa Bay, St. Petersburg, Florida. Our prior fund-raising efforts were well-rewarded with three days of hot sunshine—a welcome change from a cold, rainy June in Pennsylvania. We were even blessed with a slight breeze.
We all came back from the trip sunburnt and tired yet invigorated, with stories of sharks on the line, stingrays at our feet, and more. Perhaps my favorite moment was kayaking out onto the bay just after the sun popped up at the horizon, sending red-gold rays of light dancing across the water. Or sitting beneath a palm tree on Sunday morning, watching the sun on the water and a little crab in the sand. Or watching the sun set over the Gulf of Mexico while some friends and I walked along wet sand, gentle waves washing up to our feet.
Back in Pennsylvania, I am now fully into summer with my kindergarten class. As with the rest of the kindergarten year, the children primarily play since that is the foundation for all learning of any kind. However, the classroom play has become yard play, and afternoons —if they’re hot enough— see us in the shallow area of a pond, learning to enjoy being in the water, plus a few basic swim skills. Days like today that are too chilly for swimming, are great opportunities for woods play. Yesterday and today were apparently not too cold for clay and stream water to be mixed into paint and applied to faces and arms. The parents haven’t complained yet. . . .
So I look forward to experiencing summer through the eyes of six-year-olds. We rejoice over every moth or butterfly, regardless of size or color. Our vegetable garden is flourishing —including the weeds— but luckily gardening seems to be a popular activity. Our lettuce, first leaves picked today, has been proclaimed “the best lettuce in the world.” You might like to try some?
What we’re enjoying
Norann
These winter mornings, while the coffee brews, I crunch out on the frost to capture sunrise. On the hill behind me, the citrus orchard with oranges, lemons, and grapefruits is ripening under the frost’s sweetening powers. The orange harvest has begun – the different varieties get harvested as they are ready (patience is required as they often look bright and juicy but taste sour), and we enjoy them for communal lunch.
This morning, there were parrots wheeling in the predawn blush, and I thought of my mother who grew up in Paraguay. She told us that when they went to harvest the oranges from the jungle, the monkeys would laugh and plug the children with rotten citrus.
I never understood why my mom said that Paraguayan oranges tasted better than any she’d bought from a store.
I understand now.
And I’ll never forget her joy when she visited Australia in our winter of 2003, and picked and ate citrus right off the tree for the first time since she was 15.
It was my mother who taught me to find beauty in everyday details. She was an artist, and would capture wonder with paints and brushes and cameras. She inspired me that words were art, too, and capable of shaping memorable images. I often think of her with her brushes when I craft a sentence, and her advice to other painters to “set the work aside for awhile and come back to it.”
I take that same advice for my work with words, which, like oranges and paintings, take time to ripen.
Trudi
A seventeen-hour bus journey gave me time to do what I usually don’t: pick up a book and read. Not only that, but I read for hours on end and felt deliciously old-fashioned. It was Pearl S. Buck’s, The Living Reed. Like a true historical novel should be, the pages are packed with history and yet enlivened by a narrative and cultural descriptions. Fascinating. I have a few more pages to go.
My other recent favorite, in audio format, was The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom. I may have skimmed it in high school, but I’ve devoured it now. Corrie must be one of the most personable and honest writers I have encountered, and her life bears the mark of a true disciple. It’s meaningful, enjoyable, inspirational.
Marianne
As the summer solstice approaches the sky starts to get light well before 5:00, and I am fairly often awake to see it because the trees around our house are full of birds who start an exuberant dawn chorus at the first hint of light. Normally early mornings are not my favorite time of day, but at this time of year it’s nice to be awake to hear the bird song, never better described than by Gerard Manley Hopkins:
…and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing.
A perfect poem to start a June day with.
What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.
That’s all for now folks. Enjoy the season you’re in!