It felt like just yesterday that I moved my things into 75 Blake Street and now, two years later, my things are all moved out and my time serving as the female Resident Leader and living at Blake Street, comes to an end.
In preparation for writing this blog, I reread the newsletters I’d written to my community of supporters to get an idea of the story over my time at Act Five. In one of my early updates I had reflected on the mission of Act Five: to lead young people into a deeply rooted and engaged life following Jesus. I realized that though this specific wording hasn’t been on my radar for a while, I am one of the young people who has been shaped.
During second semester the students have the opportunity to participate in a placement in a field that they could see themselves pursuing after Act Five. As part of Kassia’s placement, we took on an artistic project remembering the home as it was before the summer’s renovations.
In our initial conversation, ideas erupted and we couldn’t write fast enough to keep up with the inspiration we had to catalogue the home. We landed on the idea of eight different pieces, each representing a different room in the home. We worked in mixed media, running around with plasticine to make prints of cool textures, used real popcorn and cooked spaghetti to make marks, and referenced pieces of literature, poetry and prayers that have been significant in the home over the years.
One thing I learned over my time working with and supervising Kassia on this project was that 75 Blake Street had really become my home. I knew the essence of the spaces and what happened in them, I knew the prayers and the liturgies by heart and I got to spend time thinking about where I fit in the story of the home as I thought to capture it through Art. I knew this home and I knew my place.
A quote that Act Five often refers to is this; “we cannot love what we do not know and we cannot know what we do not experience.” As I looked at the eight pieces hanging on the wall when we were finally done, it was clear to me that being immersed in this place has truly shaped me to love it.
There is real pain in pulling up the roots that have grown over the last season of my life, yet I’m left wondering what this longing means for where I go next. As I head to teachers college in September, with the goal of teaching high school Art and English, I realize that my next place needs to look different. I am so grateful and I have been so deeply blessed in this season of Act Five, and at the same time I know that it cannot last forever, it shouldn’t last forever. Hope grows in the “deathy stuff”. Sounds dramatic, but it feels true. The pain I feel over leaving sparks in me a longing to know my next place.
In giving myself to this work, I have been molded into someone who longs to be where my feet are. I used to long for the big adventures in life, yet as I sit with myself in this transition, my longings have shifted more towards simplicity. I leantowards rhythms of prayer, and walking in my neighbourhood. I’ve learned to be curious about the names of the trees that line the sidewalk and my backyard. I’ve been shaped to want to know where I am.
My prayer as my time with Act Five comes to a close is that whatever neighbourhood and home I end up in next, that it would be a place I come to know deeply and in turn, come to love deeply too.
