The tiny moments of true community in Gaming, Austria
Location: the Kartause
A search, an ache, a quest. It lies within our hearts and characterizes the spirit of this Kartause community that I am blessed to call home for a few months. Ironically, this sense of coming home is incomplete without our seeking someone to welcome us home. We all need someone to come home to.
I remember when we were young and the sound of the front door deadbolt sliding open pierced through the air, signaling Dad’s arrival. I can still acutely sense, feel, hear that hollow click resonate throughout my being though it’s been years since I’ve experienced Dad coming home from work. We would run to the door screaming “daddyyyy!” as though each return marked the return of a soldier from war. It became tradition — in the sense that my little self knew Dad expected our delighted little cries. I must cry out, because then he would respond with his own joyful “hellooooo” that, then, seemed to me to be part of our little play-act: we run and yell, he cheers and hugs.
Only now do I realize that our little “play-act” was more real than the hellos that most of us give each other.
Our childlike hellos were more real than my unacknowledged hellos of the stranger-friends that young adult life brings. Those dull nods, those self-conscious waves, the ignoring of the other altogether because, well, we see this person every day.
My little being still remembers being someone that Dad came home to. And only now in my want do I experience the joy that he must have experienced during his own homecoming. An enthusiasm that once seemed to me a ritual that I grew out of has become such a vital desire. It spoke of something profoundly true and real. I too want someone to come home to; I would “play-act” a thousand times, and the ritual will never get old.
Someone to come home to.
Let’s not overcomplicate this, friends. I say this to my twenty-year-old self, to the insecure and the too-cool-for-school streaks that I can recognize in these people around me only because I recognize it in myself. “Someone to come home to” does not mean that I must force myself to create something anew, to find the perfect people in the perfect place. It does not always mean long letters or two-hour coffee dates or those bids for attention we use all too often to convince ourselves that we are worthy of love rather than blessing those we walk with.
Someone to come home to.
I’m talking about the tiny moments of true community that we discover in everyday living.
Walk with me for a moment into the Kartause. It’s a simple Thursday morning. Theresa brings me back my shoes she used for her game last night, the stained white coming back with a few more grass stains than usual…
I put the shoes aside and get up to toast the little “mensa rolls” that our Kartause community lives off of, and Bella comes. She is singing a song from a show I’ve never watched, and here I am, peeving her again for my “lack of culture”. Believe me, it’s enough to strain a friendship – the fact that I’ve never seen Teen Beach back in my dark debate days. In fact, it’s enough to convince her that she needs three whole minutes of silence (to compose herself, obviously) before she runs off to her Christian marriage class… so she tells me. Offense immediately forgotten, Bella walks over to haunt another soul with the melodies of highschool rom-coms and finds Lulu by the chocolate granola. Now, Lulu stands very preoccupied with fulfilling a dream that she confided in me upon waking…
…”Alina, I dreamt having of the chocolate granola from the mensa for breakfast last night…”
“…Lulu, I think you have this dream every night!”
It’s a simple Thursday morning. And hidden in the simplicity of the Thursday mornings are the gems of true community, shining from the fabric of my life.
And perhaps of my friends. And my stranger-friends.
I continued to sit, finishing some work in one of the only places here with Wifi. This is our lifestyle, our eating, working, and sharing place. Zoning out of work, my mind idly caught hold of a household sister chatting with her friend. And in the brief moment (of eavesdropping through my earbuds, sure), I see that perhaps this “Someone To Come Home To” is simpler than we think. This person is simply someone who says “thank you for sharing your discernment story for the summer” and “do you want to watch Hamilton?” in the same breath.
Someone to come home to.
They are the people that you spend Friday nights with, eating McDonalds in San Polten, Austria after leading praise and worship for the archdiocese together, and they are the people that you expect to see sitting in their usual chapel spot during your holy hour before Mass. They are the people who spontaneously break out into pajama dance parties with you or sit with you on the counters of tea-kitchens eating ice cream after traditional Austrian balls.
Someone to come home to.
Why does it never fail to surprise me, though I look for the next country, the next trip, the next job, the next story, the next grand adventure, the next home? In my quest for home, Lord, keep me aching for my someone to home to. And bring to my sensitivity this deep need within my neighbors, that we may meet in each moment with the openness that finds us on simple Thursday mornings borrowing each other’s shoes and welcoming each other home.