We are still active even if we haven't blogged in a year.

It has been over a year since we posted anything to this blog. However, it has been a full year for us. We explored for a time being a place from which a musician could travel touring coffee houses playing her music, and for a time she did so until deciding that she wanted to settle in another city. Also last year we were approached by someone who was taking a sabbatical from Christian Peacemaker Teams, and wanted to do so by living with the community for four months. Also in the last year two members moved on from the community and two members joined We have continued to have occasional Friday suppers to which at times over 20 people have come to one supper. And we have had our various celebrations of Birthdays, and Twelfth night, and people over to watch movies and then discuss them.

In October we had our first all community Retreat at St Gregory's Abbey in Three Rivers Michigan. We reviewed our Rule and life together. In doing so we recommitted to observing our times of prayer especially morning and evening, and agreed to for right now to have two days a week group mediation as our morning and evening prayer. We also came to the realization that something we do as a community and a way we live into our sense of calling to hospitality is that we take in people who need a period of time to recover or a time to transition from one period of life and circumstance to another. We decided that we needed to name this and simply officially say that this is something we are about and do as a community. Currently we can only recieve people who are able to pay for full room and board while they take this sort of extended retreat, which means we can't always take in people in need of such time of recovery. Our hope is to be able to eventually be in a position where we can offer such retreats with scholarships given to those who need to cover a large portion of the costs of their time with us.

In this last year we have also reminded and pushed the directors of *culture is not optional (*cino) to move on reforming their board so that the decision could be made of us to join *cino as an intentional community of *cino. The board is now reformed and hopefully they will be soon considering and discussing the proposal we sent into *cino two years ago or so, just before members of their former board had to step down and the directors had to take a position at Calvin College, and moved from Three Rivers to Grand Rapids.

We are also exploring ways we can expand and receive new members and also have room to have retreatants hear from time to time. We have someone exploring possibly joining the community in the fall, and are looking at the feasibility of renting an apartment near Immanuel Lutheran's parsonage. We are also exploring ways to expand and solidify the relationships the community has with Church of Jesus Christ, Reconciler which I, Larry, pastor in addition to being prior of the community, and Immanuel Lutheran Church. One of our members is now both a member of Immanuel and a member of their church council. In the past year we have taken up for a month or two at a time taking leadership of the evening prayer service at Immanuel on Wednesday evenings, and we join in the community meal on Wednesday evenings which is part of their mid week afternoon program for school children and youth.

If you have come by and any of this sounds interesting to you and you'd like to join with us in any way or interested in becoming a member feel free to contact us via e-mail and we can let you know how you can join with us. If you are in Chicago set up a time for a visit or come and join us for prayer.