Mietzke's POST Holden Adventure

Today was our last day at Holden.  We have been finishing all of the details of packing and cleaning, and we have been in the business of saying goodby.  All week we have been practicing the art of letting go and filling the moments with gratitude.  This village and the people here are precious and have given us such beautiful gifts of love, compassion, and friendship.  It has been a very emotional couple of days as we let go of this daily experience of community and enter into another.

We will miss the rhythm of this place the daily time for reflection and prayer, good conversations and creativity, common meals and good old Holden hilarity.

This place has been such a blessing for each of us.  Holden, we love you!

I have to admit, as a visual thinker, that the first time I heard the summer theme for the village ”We Have this Treasure” I immediately thought of Pirates and pictured Eric preaching his sermons from the gaping mouth of a large skull, a patch over one eye and draped in jewels. It wasn’t until the village held discussion time about the theme and heard the text that my internal picture began to change and develop. I have been thinking about the verse for several months and it has come to mean a great deal to me. The verse reads: For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. I often think about things in terms of color and texture and as I thought about the text I began to imagine what colors and images could express what is offered through the text. I thought about the space a lot and about all of the people who would be coming through the village this summer. I also thought about the verse in relationship to my own human journey. I began to picture myself as earthen vessel with cracks and imperfections, with purpose and usefulness, but also with deep places of brokenness. I thought about the process of the formation of clay jars, of the shaping and molding that brings a form to life, and the hands that bring the purpose to the form. I thought of each of us in different stages of formation being molded into vessels in which light can live, formed and reformed through our imperfections by the loving hand of the potter for a purpose only known to the creator. Through my journey of picturing the text of I began wondering about its meaning and to think of and look at clay vessels in a new way. I began to think about their fragility and the various purposes that they serve. In some countries clay jars are made with holes and cracks to be lanterns shining light into the darkness. Some were created and used to hold life giving water or food for nourishment. Some were created to hold sacred articles and documents. Then there are also those that are used daily for washing and carrying things from one place to another. As I pondered these things I began to collect pottery from around the village. I don’t know if you know this but there is a pottery grave yard behind the craft cave that houses all of the pots and bowls that have been left behind, those that didn’t quite make the cut pieces cracked or broke in the firing process. We also have some treasured pieces of clay art in the village, which are displayed in different places as articles of beauty. I gleaned pottery from all over the village and actually went out of the village to purchase some to the bigger pieces. I looked at all sorts of pots trying to find just the right thing and all along pondering “what is just the right thing?” Another though I had in my search was: “If I were a pot what would I long for…” My first thought was: “to be filled” and my second, “to be useful.” I would want to have a purpose. So, I bought the big fancy pots. I worked with Melissa and Nancy Johnson on dying fabric, and through the process I thought a lot about vessels of light and water, and then I cam into the village center to put things together. We hung fabric, and I thought about the verse. Rachel and I spent several days painting the verse on the banners and I though about the verse. I collected pottery and I though about the verse, and I realized after a time that in other aspects of my life I had begun thinking of myself and others as these earthen vessels. I had all along intended to use pottery as the landscape for a artistic scene in the village center. We lay down the platforms that Marv had made, we put the triptic up on it, and I thought about the verse. We potted the plants in the new pots, we set up the fountain, and arranged all of the matching new pots. I stepped back to look at the scene…Serenity had been achieved. The matching pots looked beautiful with the cascading green of the plants. The whole scene was calming like something you would see at a resort. Then I started taking out the village pottery that I had collected and Andrew and I began to add bits and pieces to the scene. As I held each piece in my hand I wondered about it where should it go? Who had made it? I noticed the imperfections and the beauty in each one. When we finally had it set up I stood back to take a look. What had been my peaceful serene retreat garden was chaotic, and interesting. I was looking at a representation of humanity where I could see the cracks, the forgotten, the unfinished, all hoping for purpose. I saw myself in all different walks of my human journey. As I took in the scene, there was a part of me that longed for the perfect presentation that I had started out with where everything matched and was well ordered, but on the other hand there was something in that moment that I was a witness to: it was a glimpse of truth, the imperfect everyday truth of our common human experience. There was something vulnerable about the state of openness and longing that all off those empty pots created. I left that night feeling unsettled. The next morning I went back this time with Tom (a village carpenter) We took every piece off the “stage” and put facing on the front of it, we filled the stage with sand, and then we began to place things again. This time I really thought about each piece, and it’s potential. After placing a pot or two, I would step back and look at those that I had placed and then go back to the table for more. As I spent my time placing the pots I thought about God moving through each one of these vessels giving purpose back to the forgotten, lifting up the cast aside, and gently working on the unfinished pieces. I pictured God taking painstaking time with the placement of each of us. When I stepped back after placing the last pot I saw a picture of humanity this time in a different light. I saw purpose and love present with each of those vessels. I saw the need for the potter and the reformation of something cast aside bringing these questions back onto the foreground for me. Who is the potter? Can I be filled? Will God use me even in my brokenness to bring light? A prayer for today. God, Use our brokenness; fill us with love so that compassion pours out of every crack in our beings. Help us to see light and purpose in the brokenness around us and help us live as vessels of your light and love. Amen

There are so many parts to saying goodbye that I had forgotten about; having spent 18 months here at Holden immersed in the village Rhythm and seeing the same faces day in and day out, I have gained a feel for the day, the week, and the people, that I could not get anywhere else.
Our movement through the week was based on the cycle of services.
It is Thursday’s which means vespers at the tables, Friday prayer on the cross, Saturday a sung service usually Holden Evening prayer…Sunday Morning Matins, Sunday evening Eucharist…I have gauged my days less by hours and more by what we are having for dinner or by the services and the ringing of the bell.
Our weeks at Holden revolve around relationship and I have gotten to know this group of people really well. I can gauge people’s moods from across the room, and I have gotten to observe and take in little quirky habits. This person tilts their head when they laugh, that one clears there throat when their nervous, another emphasizes nearly everything with wild arm movements when they talk, so and so bobs there head when they are thinking really hard, and I can always find Trevor by his wonderful heartfelt laugh…
In saying goodbye I am moving away from the subtle of everyday life that have caused me to fall in love with this village and every wonderful person in it.
When you live at Holden the Rhythm is so strong that your last week here is marked by “this is my last time eating Paul’s Salmon, or Kale, or Holden bread. This is my last morning service, my last chance to sing for prayer on the cross, and it is filled with lasts for work and home life as well. Not that we will never come back for Holden is in us now, but it will pass in the capacity that it has been home and community for us at this point in our lives.
The thing that has struck me as we venture out is how amazingly fortunate we are to have built friendships and to have been surrounded daily by song and prayer; To have eaten at a table with people from all different walks of life on a daily basis. We have been engaged in community life, challenged personally and professionally to grow in more ways than I can count.
I have watched my children held and nurtured by community members and was amazed by the support and help that we received when Dave broke his leg.
I experienced the effects of nature in a daily, weekly monthly and seasonal rhythm that has brought God and Mystery to the forefront of my mind constantly.
Being at Holden I grew as a mother, a wife, an artist, a friend, and a leader. Here I grappled with my insecurities and moved through deep places of fear and anxiety. Spiritually, I made peace with, let go of some judgments, and gained compassion for Christians. The village life is living breathing liturgy moving us through the year in a way that opened me to deeper meanings behind what I previously thought of as barriers, and I began to see the life of Jesus in a new way. Holden offered me the space in which to question, grapple and come to terms with my past relationship to God and helped to foster a safe space in which to continue my journey into the unknown, rebuilding and reconciling within myself my relationship with God. I have loved being a part of a village that focuses on and relies upon grace as a central daily theme, and lives it out in relationship with those around us. The focus on loving one another and living in active compassion towards people from all walks of life gave me a sense of hope.
Holden has been a blessing for my marriage and my family. We have gotten so much good time together in the village and we are all closer because of it. One of my favorite things about the vespers services has been that time together with my family, just taking the time to sit with each other each night. Generally each one of the girls would sit on one of our laps or hold our hands through the service, and almost every night as I set up Nyrie Dave or Jordyn would come to help, or just be with me as I straightened chairs and lit candles. I appreciated being together in those spaces of preparation.
Nyrie and I really loved that time together. She called herself the worship assistants apprentice and would help out preparing for the service, light candles, put out books, ring the bell, and sometimes even dressed up like me. We fell in love with the Rhythm of the day, and the joining together that brought the day to a close.
I am so grateful for what we have experienced here. Holden has been an education of the mind, body, and spirit. Full of challenges and daily grace!