I recently graduated with a master’s degree and have been reflecting on my time at grad school through some key events that shaped me.
I remember when I left for school. I drove off in the crisp, cool summer morning with a tightly packed Honda civic toward California. For the beginning eight hours or so, the car rolled along the highway and so did my mind because of a whispered statement my mother made. “Find some people that can come alongside you —don’t be alone.” The comment was odd; I was excited for the formation that was about to happen in my mind and the constant sitting in the library with my pen, paper, and books. I am a thinker, and I enjoy solitude —a good book, journal, my thoughts wrestling, and a glass of scotch, neat. I had never given it any thought about the community that would be needed to help in my formation, nor did I believe it would be worth much to me. As my mother’s comment continued to be whispered in my ear, I immediately felt the strangeness of my desire for a community that wanted to be formed and reformed by its unique makeup of individuals coming together for one purpose to think together about life.
Notably, when I arrived, I found community didn’t come together like one might expect. Little did I know that my nightly visits to an awkward porch with chairs that could be broken at any moment and a wobbly table would later play host to life-changing community gatherings. It began with people asking me what I was reading while walking by. Then, it progressed to them staying a while longer, to chat about the day and what they were learning. This rhythm continued daily. I then I realized that my little porch was becoming. Eventually, it blossomed into a space for unambiguous vulnerability …the place my fellow students and I would go to give and receive the other.
The meetings usually began with a bottle of wine or scotch. All could participate if they felt like they wanted to come to share a drink. There was a dynamic interplay happening on every porch night — we opened ourselves up to new possibility and ways of forging ahead that stemmed from engaging each other. We learned to ask better questions of each other and to listen as the meetings progressed. This lead us to learning how to reflect together over. We ruminated on simple thoughts to controversies, all of which would eventually lead somehow to reflecting on the delicate nature and messiness of our lives and creating meaning. The nights of the porch started to become a rhythm. For a handful of us, the experience had become integral to the formation process; it enabled us to forge ahead into the next day and season.
After I graduated, the porch nights was something special that I ached for again. I wondered where could I find a place that freely gave to one another and received from one another the input and realizations in order to forge ahead for the next day or season? During this time I found myself in a cigar shop, once again with my books where an acquaintance invited me to play chess. While we played, we would started to converse about the things we had been reading and contemplating things like convictions, political philosophy, relationship dynamics and life challenges. They were casual conversations, yet it was more than the weather and quick feelings update. Interestingly, like the porch, the more we met, the more the conversations began to open us up and others. Without truly knowing it, the porch nights had been reshaped into cigar nights.
Looking back, I realize that the porch/cigar nights have a deep kind of magic about them, but the magic takes effect only when participants come ready to give and receive openly. The place itself was not the magic, just the host. Instead, it was the dynamic interplay of the individuals that composed the magic. The openness to explore ambition, brokenness, confusion, hurt, joy, understanding, and deliberation was the “x” factor to the magic.
May we all find our porch.
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