At home this last summer, I picked up my phone to answer a friend’s call: “Hey!” I greeted him as I pushed past a few people to make my way to another room. “Hey!” he replied. “Are you at a party?”
A party…? I thought for a second before laughing. Not quite. It was, in fact, just a typical, lively evening at the Copan Commune — an affectionate name for our home.
Anyone on campus who knows my sister, Kristen, and me knows how difficult it is not to bring our family life into conversation. Granted, we don’t actually try very hard to avoid the subject. Who wouldn’t get excited detailing the adventures of our artsy gypsy sister, Johanna, who’s gallivanting through Europe; or Peter, who’s working toward a Masters in some obscure field of expertise so he can work in the slums of India; or Mama Copan who, a few years back, got her nose pierced spur-of-the- moment and is the woman everyone ought to emulate? And that’s only a few members of the household. And that’s only the immediate family.
As my father is a professor at a local Christian liberal arts university, from which two of my siblings graduated, naturally, we’ve formed friendships with a number of students there. We began taking in some of these kids — whether newly graduated or still in school — as well as kids through other avenues. The Commune began with one guest and quickly grew to four that first summer of 2012. This promptly turned into students asking to stay with us throughout the school year, the chief conditions being that they enter into the spirit of community life and that they are moving forward in their lives.
On the subject of my family, I recognize I am prone to sentimental gushing and, before I know it, I sound like an elitist who thinks my family has hit upon the only way to run a household. While I know other people have wonderful families and communities, I am simply highlighting my experience in our unique community — acknowledging the place of God’s grace at work in our lives. I see more and more that “it is grace, nothing but grace, that we are allowed to live in community with Christian brethren” (“Life Together,” Dietrich Bonhoeffer).
By extension, what I’ve seen unfold so tangibly is expressed in Acts 4:32: “And the congregation of those who believed were of one heart and soul; and not one of them claimed that anything belonging to him was his own, but all things were common property to them” — the “congregation” or mini-church, being the Copans plus these others whom we’ve absorbed into our number. This verse has come alive in a number of ways. Consider for one, the rooming situation: Often I come home from school and am unsure as to whether I’ll be sleeping in my own bed or whether it has gone to a new guest. Why, dear Kristen hasn’t slept in her own bed in more than a year! And then there’s the dinner table, which becomes increasingly cramped, but also increasingly merry: People come and go, but most summer and winter breaks, on average we’re setting out 12 to 14 plates for a meal.
This verse becomes even more tangible in what actually happens at these mealtimes; they involve prayer, singing, and robust conversation — conversation regarding theology, literature, or any other curiosities. Such sobremesas foster ready exchange and a zeal to engage in intellectual and spiritual pursuits together. We are intentional about making our schedules merge, but especially at mealtimes. It is within this context of brushing shoulders that a “liberal arts” sort of community has emerged. Indeed, it is our life together, the mingling of the mundane (washing dishes, trips to the grocery store, etc.) with our shared love and pursuit of higher things, that makes for such conviviality.
When I come home from Hillsdale, my greatest priority consists simply of being in the Commune’s company and breaking bread with the people to whom I am bound — not merely my family, but those to whom I am bound by a love we’ve come to know in Christ. In this community, we have woven “a thousand strands, great and small,” that have linked us together; we are ever-striving to become, as Acts states, “of one heart and soul.” For “after all, there is but one source of joy” (“A Severe Mercy”). Whether it be jam sessions late into the evening, dance parties in the kitchen whilst doing dishes, or conversation around the table, we’ve found a deep-seated joy rooted in the Father, who does all things sweetly.
So yes, when my friend asked me if I was at a party, he caught me off guard just a little bit. But it took only a second to recover and respond, “A party? …Yeah, you could say that.”