Topside GF

GF and Scotland

Hey, all.

It has been a while, eh? I took a trip to Scotland with my dad and his seminary class and enjoyed myself and was glad to come back... traveling with a group of 10 is not my preferred way to travel, but... it was a great group of people. I was one of three women and the only non-seminary attached person, and they kept all trying to convince me to go to seminary. They got pretty close to it!

The big news in my life is that I'm finally leaving the farm -- I'm headed back to Scotland to work as the musician in a community much like GF but not serving people with mental illness. The guests there are religious pilgrims, instead. And it's in Scotland! And the community is well known around the world for it's worship music and I'll get to work with John Bell, one of the top 10 worship music composers currently!!! If all goes well with my visa, I'll start the job there on September 1... so, as you can probably guess, I'm running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to square away all the details.

The farm seems to be falling apart... pray for it, all you praying people out there... We still have no executive director (it's been, what?, 2 years?), C-dawg is acting as executive director and program director and, as nice as he is, he's not doing a super good job of keeping things together (partly because he's in a super hard position). Poor, the HR director, left. Maddie, the development director, left. Leaving, in that section of the upstairs, L-een, a 1-year staffer who signed on to be essentially an administrative secretary, also trying to be an HR person and a development person, while there is still no executive director. But not for long, because she wants to become residential, much to the chagrin of the only person who will be left up there, and much to the delight of the residential team. Everyone's stressed. Sweet-thing, housekeeper, goes on sabbatical in a couple weeks, which is unfortunate because her trusty sidekick just left for grad school. We will soon be living in squalor and confusion, I'm sure. The residential team is losing 2 of its 3 detail-oriented and managerial people, and perhaps losing the third one, as well. I'm going to Scotland, and Moo is going to Portland -- each 5 time zones away in opposite directions. "The First", the front desk receptionist, is threatening to take a job at RSS, while the RSS assistant manager is threatening to become the front desk receptionist... JoBro is leaving with Moo, leaving a hole in the farm team. Sometime soon, my favorite current boss J-me and fam are moving to a house off farm. And staff meeting is full of tactless and un-funny jokes, thanks to C-dawg, who tries really hard but doesn't really get that what he says is not amusing sometimes...

So all, y'all... keep idealizing the farm... keep overflowing with nostalgia. Because I need reminded that this remains a really good place with really good people trying really hard to do really important and worthy work. Cuz it's darn hard to see from the inside sometimes. (And perhaps some of this is colored by the fact that I'm leaving and have made it here about as long as any young residential person ever makes it at the farm.) I'm sure when I leave I'll gush about the place again... and I hope that while I'm here I'll still keep finding things to gush about. But for now, I have to say, it's pretty frustrating.

On the up side, we have a new baby -- PhilEno. And there are something like 8 or 9 families on the farm that are having kids, or trying to have kids, or have had kids... and lots and lots of really cute animals... and two couples who are engaged (and who met at the farm...awww, how cute!)... and a constant influx of vivacious volunteers... and it's summer in the Berkshires, which can hardly be anything but beautiful. The cabins are done and being moved into...

K... that's enough for now. I hope you all are doing well! And I'm glad we have this blog... it'll be good to be able to keep in touch when I finally do leave the farm. =)

posted by starpilgrim @ 10:32 AM