Community

Over the last year, I've heard a lot about community. The church has to exist in community - we support one another in crisis, at least we mean to, and we sharpen one another in conflict, the old iron sharpens iron thing. I heard of a group that are trying to take that further and live in the same neighborhood with their small group and share living in a more daily way. Even in the secular world you hear a lot about community service or doing work for charitable and rescue operations.

Well, we have been in our town home in a three street development on the edge of a village near our office for almost four weeks now. The "backyards" all are postage stamp terraces that touch one another and the windows of our homes look out over all the yards and directly to the other houses across the yard. When you sit on the patio, you can hear conversation going on all around. Yesterday when I was upstairs I could hear a child playing a flute or recorder somewhere. All the sounds and noises seem to carry through the homes and the, currently, open windows.

So far the neighbors have been very stand offish which is very different from our last experience here in Spain. They seem to have some strong reservations about us, the new neighbors, but when I see how overlapped they are in their living I can understand that it will take some proving ourselves to be accepted into the "community." It will be interesting to see if we can earn our place on the block.

When? American Culture Shock

I've never been a morning person. That is my first confession. I have a good time if I get up and join along a party going somewhere early on a Saturday (a trip to the lake), but there is usually a soul searching moment before I agree wondering if I really want to or if it is worth it. In Spain, we meet at 8:30am for a trip to the mountains. Still feels early.

In Spain, things usually start later. Our church started at 11:30 (out at 2pm). The church we went to in language school only had evening church at 6pm. No one ever wants to meet for breakfast because they don't do that and there's no where to go eat breakfast. Events in general don't start exactly on time.

On the other hand, they think nothing of meeting at 9 or 10pm for dinner and then going out after that. I did go to hear my brother play in a band recently leaving the house at 9pm and that didn't cross my mind at all as unusual at all.

I was recently at an American event that started at 8:30am. Someone made the comment about starting on time and getting "up and running" in the morning and how satisfying those two things are.

I recognized that my own personality of late rising and the combo of being in Spain where things aren't started on time generally makes me less and less comfortable with strong punctuality and early meetings. It was a very North American moment. On the other hand, I'm a grown up and know when I'm home I need to get with the US system. It's just funny to find yourself outside your cultural norm.

Huh?

A couple weeks ago I was going down our front stairs toward our gate and the neighbor's dog went zooming past. Luna is a chocolate lab and every night they let her out of the yard and she shoots like a bullet down the street and out into the wilderness behind our homes. Dogs are always so delighted with things in life and I wanted to express this to my neighbor who was following Luna at a more leisurely pace.

So I open my gate and say, "Oh dogs, they have so much..." here I want to use the word joy and I know this word because we seem to use it most weeks at church but there's a glitch in my mental chip as I search for the word.... "they have so much jewelry!" The buy gets a really odd look on his face and I say, "no, not jewelry, what's the word?" Awkward pause as I do my usual sounding out a syllable I can't find in my head. That's it, maybe. "They have so much Goya." The guy smiles. I think he gets what I"m saying and we go our separate ways on our separate walks.

About a half block later, I realize I've said the name of a famous Spanish artist - Goya. Nice. Dogs have so much Goya. What art? Paintings?

What I meant to say...was gozo -- joy! Sigh. I just keep sowing seeds of the strange American neighbors but I keep trying.