The Save the Frogs tent at Huss Future Festival on July 19, 2014.

Our continuing exploration of *cino’s core values took us to a discussion of creative collaboration during our weekly Garden of your Mind session. Our text for the dialogue came from Community: The Structure of Belonging by Peter Block. The book opens with the following statement about community:

The essential challenge is to transform the isolation and self-interest within our communities into connectedness and caring for the whole. The key is to identfy how this transformation occurs. We begin by shifting our attention from the problems of community to the possibility of community. We also need to acknowledge that our wisdom about individual transformation is not enough when it comes to community transformation. So, one purpose here is to bring together our knowledge about the nature of collective transformation.

Huss Future Festival is a prime example of the value of creative collaboration at work within *cino activities. Future Fest brings together numerous organizations and individuals from around the Three Rivers area, from organizations that participate in the coin carnival to artists selling wares, from local folks working on frog extinction issues to Speaking Stone Cafe, and, this year, working alongside the Three Rivers Area Faith Community (TRAFC) for their Back-to-School backpack distribution. Each of these entities brings something unique to the event that otherwise would be absent, and together we are able to create something greater than the sum of its parts.

That is one of our small offerings towards the collective transformation of the Three Rivers community we seek to be a part of. Our own *cino community has individually made commitments towards a certain kind of life, but we recognize that those decisions alone do not add up to community transformation. For that, creative collaboration is an absolutely essential component. Sometimes collaboration requires the type of creativity that figures out ways to bridge the gap — what Block refers to as bridging capital — between parties who disagree. That is the sort of creativity that breaks down barriers pushes through stalemates, and that is the sort of collaboration that can change the world.

The setting at which we at *cino gathered this Tuesday reflected the core value we intended to discuss. We assembled around our neighbor’s pool on a hot and sunny afternoon, cooled ourselves in the water, enjoyed cold beverages, and eventually made our way to dissecting what it means for us to live in a Sabbath rhythm.

The reading our discussion centered around was a piece done by Norma Wirzba entitled “Time Out” that was published in The Christian Century on July 12, 2005. Wirzba tells of his grandfather, a farmer in Poland, Germany and southern Alberta, a man who he remembers as always embodying a type of “Sabbath rhythm” that shaped not only when he worked and when he rested, but how he worked and rested. Wirzba writes that “Sabbath observance was not simply a moment of his week. It framed his attitude, focused his desire and helped him shape the pace and direction of his daily walk. It inspired and enabled him to greet life with care and delight.” This rhythm, this pace, that his grandfather practiced was done in the pursuit of menuha, an ancient Jewish term that can be translated as tranquility, delight and peaceful repose. One memory Wirzba recalls of his grandfather pursuing this menuha in his daily routine was the practice of hand-feeding the farm’s chickens freshly cut grass after lunch. The free-range chickens had more than enough grass to feed themselves as they roamed the yard, but this routine grew out of “his sense that they were creatures deserving of their own forms of delight.” He did not let the demand of work or pending danger of storms or droughts bully him into not showing care and attention to each creature on the farm, all of which he considered a gift.

The story of Wirzba’s grandfather differs sharply from many of our own experiences and understandings of Sabbath rhythm. For many of us growing up, Sabbath rhythm meant little more than taking a break from the tasks at hand, whether that meant not working (or working less) on Sundays or eating a snack after school. Wirzba’s understanding of Sabbath rhythm, which is shaped largely by his grandfather’s example, suggests a rhythm and pace that doesn’t merely re-boot us for the ensuing workweek, but transforms how we understand our week. Our time of rest is not merely a collapse on the couch; it is a reflection and celebration of the gifts always available to us. By slowing down during even one day of the week, we can train ourselves to intentionally slow down throughout the week: when doing dishes, driving to work, talking to a friend, feeding the chickens. Wirzba suggests that when we do this we open ourselves up to “the sort of attention and affection that would lead to sympathetic engagement with others,” a practice radically different from those of the profit-driven mindset of consumerism.

As our conversation came to a close, some of us hopped out of the water to grab another drink while others began an enthusiastic game of 3-on-3 pool basketball. Water and laughter flew through the air as the rest of us dramatically commentated the impassioned game, which ended with a beautiful game winning, behind-the-arc shot from David Stewart (“Ka-POW!”). As we sat (or swam) in each others’ presence, it became clear that this time together was not merely a break from checking off the endless to-do’s we all had on our plates. Rather, this was a time we worked for. No, we were not sending emails or organizing fundraisers or pulling weeds. And I’m okay with that. In fact, I consider it a gift — and essential practice to our culture — to sit in a peaceful place and simply enjoy the company of friends.