What’s a way that you have experienced God this year
that you didn’t expect?
HR: For me, singing in the choir at St. Andrew’s was a total shock.
And it’s been a really spiritual experience for me, especially during
the bigger feast days when we would do more complicated pieces.
Sometimes I would think, “Whoa, God is definitely moving in these
voices right now.”
LB: I’ve been really struck by the community that is placed around
us: St. Andrew’s Church; our mentors, Abbott and Paris; our coworkers. I’ve had close-knit faith communities in my life before,
especially growing up and going to Shrine Mont, but it’s been really
cool to see that kind of community develop around you as an adult,
to have all these people who are invested and interested in you, and
would do anything to help you succeed. I anticipated that people
would be supportive, but the community has gone above and
beyond my expectations.
PT: This has been very eye-opening, working at Blue Sky Fund. I
thought going in, “Yeah, it will be cool to be outside all the time,
and gain some hard skills that I didn’t have, and maybe meet some
cool kids along the way.” But I now feel God calling me to stay in
Richmond and stay connected to the youth here, to be a consistent
presence in their lives. It would be a privilege to watch these kids,
my students in particular, grow. Hopefully I can stick around to see
them become leaders in the city.
organize the times that we ate together, and all aspects of the way
that our life as a community functions. But again, “rule” sounds so
negative to me, but it’s really just creating a barrier in which your
life is able to freely move but not become so loose that it loses its
form. So it’s not at all restrictive, but it’s more of a guide to lead us
where we want to go.
BA: I like the word “priorities.” There are so many different things
that you can spend your time doing, different things that can draw
your attention. The rule is a way that we have chosen to focus that
attention and energy. So we have goals and rules that we set for
ourselves and try to live up to, to make sure that we are spending
time in prayer, that we’re spending time with each other, that
we’re engaging with the neighborhood, because we said that
these were things that were important to us. This is a much bigger
commitment, and it allows us to spend a lot of quality time together
and to grow in our relationships.
HR: I think it’s what makes us an intentional community rather
than six people who live together. It defines the parameters of the
community. It defines how we’re going to spend our time.
LB: In the exact same vein, I’ve lived with people who I love, but
in retrospect I wish that I had been able to ask for these kinds of
commitments from people I’ve lived with in the past. The Rule of
Life creates boundaries in which we can take good care of ourselves,
take good care of each other, take good care of the house, and it
makes living here really wonderful.
What is the Rule of Life and how did you write it?
PT: The Rule of Life is a concrete framework that allows us to
divide commitment equally, and also to provide equal support for
one another.
Patrick Keyser: After we did a little bit of reflecting using the
resources from Society of St. John the Evangelist, we started to
identify our priorities in terms of how we wanted to pray, and
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PHOTOS BY ASHLEY CAMERON
24
SUMMER 2016 / VIRGINIA EPISCOPALIAN