297 Collective's blog

East Side Halloween Party

We at the 297 Collective are having a Halloween party on Friday, October 31 at 4711 Prock Lane.  The festivities start at 5:30pm and go till 10:00pm.  We will have a moonwalk, beanbag toss, pumpkin carving, face painting, candy apple making, and free hamburgers and hotdogs.  Oh, and did we mention that there will be enough to rot your entire head?

If you're interested in lending a hand, feel free to stop by and jump right into the festivities. Or, if you have any questions or want to know more details about the Halloween party, please send an email to 297collective@voxveniae.com. 

Also, if you signed up to help bring stuff for the party, please bring it by Space12 (3121 East 12th Street) between the hours of 10am and 6pm anytime this week.  Or, if you plan on coming to the party, you can bring the goodies with you.  Thanks!!

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A Review of Neighborhood 297: Year 1.

It is customary to begin any critical analysis of an endeavor by highlighting the positive aspects before detailing the shortcomings.  That being said: while Neighborhood 297 has had its share of frustrations during this past year, there are aspects of the project that are worthy of mention and that also provide a foundation from which to move forward. 

 

 

I.  A Much-Needed Injection of Reality:   For those who have been part of the Neighborhood since the beginning, I will direct your attention to this time last year.  Many of us had just finished reading Shane Claiborne’s book, The Irresistible Revolution, which (in large part) spurred the desire to “live in community” and reach out to the less-fortunate.  At the time, I joked about being the only Realist in a room full of Romantics, and I remember futilely trying to dissuade our future members from entering the project with an overly-idealistic forecast of how life would soon be.  Good or Bad, Romantics sometimes awaken to a harsh reality, a world that requires much more of them than just good intentions and utopian dreams.  To the extent that the lesson learned is that God’s Work (just like every other kind of work) requires Hard Work, chalk it up as a positive. 

 

II.  Tangible Symbols of Affirmation:   A very positive aspect (and a more tangible reminder of the whole point of the Neighborhood) was the Church’s decision to establish a community center in the Neighborhood area.  Also the most public action of this past year, the transformation of C’s Nightclub (notorious in Austin for its history of shall we say, “unproductive” activities) into a central location for Church activities was instantly seized upon by the local residents and media as a much-needed positive change of direction.  Along the same lines (although not as publicly celebrated) I believe that each specific house in the Neighborhood stands for the same idea.  Despite the problems and frustrations of the first year, these structures are not going anywhere, and as long as there are individuals willing to work and sacrifice, the new community center and the Neighborhood houses will continue to symbolize opportunity. 

 

 

 

It is difficult trying to detail the shortcomings of an endeavor, especially one in which an enormous amount of resources have been poured.  Yet, while I still have strong confidence in the Neighborhood, there have definitely been a lot of frustrations and disappointments in this first year. 

 

In my own opinion [which you can take for whatever you feel it’s worth], a lot of these frustrations can be attributed to: 1) a hesitation to take action; and, 2) confusion on what actions to take.  I don’t think anyone could doubt the Neighborhood’s genuine desire to reach out to the surrounding community, but there was always the question of “What am I supposed to do about it?” 

 

This hesitation and confusion coupled with a barrage of pep-talks basically resulted in a cycle where excitement would build, but (without an outlet) would then deflate.  Repeated and repeated, and repeated again, it is clear why so many felt exhausted and non-productive. 

 

I, for one, was not surprised at Evan’s last Neighborhood post (March 2008), in which he disclosed his distaste for all the buzz-words that have been thrown around ad nauseam.  It reminded me of I.B.M.’s Stop Talking, Start Doing campaign; the vocabulary may be different, but I think the resulting frustration is the same: 

 

“We want to deliberately listen to the community around us in the hopes of engaging in conversations to grow those relationships into intentional communal-living.”   [**BINGO**]. 

 

Q:  So what are you going to do about it? 

 

A:   We haven’t ideated that yet.

 

 

As the Neighborhood moves into its second year, the organization and running of the Neighborhood will transition to the Church leadership.  I think this transition will provide more stability and certainty as to what the Neighborhood should be and actually DO [and hopefully a little less bingo]. 

 

So, after one full year,  I think the most important thing to keep in mind is that Neighborhood 297 is a good thing, and that the potential for a truly remarkable community remains.  

 

-- Peter

Let's bring this blog back to life

I am at a point where all communitarian impulses have been drained. I feel beaten up and even the prospect of heaven seems less than ideal simply because there will be other Christians there. I am having a hard time struggling to believe in God's love and in the worth of life directed toward newness in all things. The status quo is calling out for some attention and I am finding myself more and more inclined to comply.

I now have a certain dislike for the following words—community, intentional, relational and, possibly the worst, the phrases in community and as a community.

Not saying I'm giving up just yet.

Just saying that this is completely, completely devoid of glamour and sexiness.

I wouldn't quite say, "Abandon hope," but maybe ... "Be prepared to feel like hope can be nothing but abandoned, all ye who enter here."

—Evan

Compost & Bikes

Dug a shallow pit for compost today. We've been taking our rotting produce and egg shells to Sam and Carol, but now we throw them in our own backyard and will bike messenger the rich soil as needed to other gardens—or our own, if we start one (though it's getting a little in the season for that).

We've got a surplus of bike stuff here at Brookswood. We've got my bike, Stephen's bike, Adam's bike, Michael's mountain bike, Sam's fixie (half-built), an '80s Japanese frame I picked up a month or two ago for use as a community fixed gear next year, one ancient step-through women's frame, one vintage Schwinn built up as a brakeless fixie without toeclips, one old mountain bike, one lime-green Vista road bike (soon to be converted into a fixed gear for Charlene), two short-person's vintage road bikes (soon to be donated to friends) and, in all likelihood, one or two other bikes that I'm forgetting about (Ah! Like my mangled Miyata ex-fixie that got punched in the balls by a pickup truck last August). Not to mention all our handlebars, brake calipers, road cranksets, 27" wheelsets, old tires, seatposts, stems, pedals, chain bits and everything else bike-related, some broken and some good to go.

It's nice to be active in this way. We do maintenance on our bikes and help each other out with them almost every day, and we have about five or six projects in the works for other people. But it's been difficult to reach out to our neighbors with our bikes. We have had some interest from various neighbors in building up their own bike, but it hasn't gotten much farther than taking one of ours for a test ride.

Something that comes to mind is postering the neighborhood with signs that our house will be open from ?-? (time TBA) every Saturday for affordable flat repair and general bike maintenance. There is a handful of older gentleman on road bikes, as well as younger guys and kids on BMXs, who might could use something like a close-by friendly neighborhood bike shop.

—Evan

Water

The other day we converted one of our bathrooms at Brookswood to use sink and shower water for flushing the toilet. We just removed the pipes from under the sink, turned off the water to the toilet and put one bucket in the shower and one under the sink (which we pull to the shower when we're taking one). Then we pour the water into the toilet tank and flush. So far it's worked out pretty well, and it encourages me to actually briefly shower once a day. Wow! My main motivation for the idea came from a statistic that I read which said that 50 percent of the drinkable water the average American uses every day (which amounts to well over 100 liters) is used solely on pee and crap . Pretty amazing. I'm not sure how the global water situation works at the moment, but I think if everyone did this maybe there'd be more irrigation, or opportunities for irrigation, in dry or unsanitary areas of the world. So, while I still use restrooms at work, school or other people's houses, my own bathroom here at Brookswood catches all of the waste water from the sink and at least some of the waste water in the shower and uses it for my own waste. I like the setup.

—Evan

"and they all half believed they had wings"

Yeah, so this month has seen a lot.  Where to start. 

Right, so I think there's a conscientious in our house that we love Farrah and Stephanie, our neighbors across the culdesac.  We've received two cakes in as many weeks from them, the second one thanks to Stephen's pointed honesty concerning the first cake.  I'd like to do more with them, and as they've just about finished renovating their house and summer is approaching, I'm sure we'll start doing more together.  I talked with Farrah the other day and she said they were thinking of moving back to LA sometime at the end of the summer.  This makes me really sad, as they seem really awesome, but she also said we would have first dibs at renting their house if we wanted.  This is a very interesting proposition, though she didn't mention a time frame or a monetary amount. 

So evidently the other night some guy walked into our house while E$ was on his computer with headphones on in the living room.  Said guy wandered around then exited without saying anything.  When Ebaby went outside to figure out what was going on, guy was hiding behind my car.  Seeing Evan was going to find him he stands up and says, "Uh, is Randy here?"  To which Evan replies, "Um, no."  He makes some excuse then walks off.  Not nearly as bad as what happened at the Daniel's haus, but pretty creepy. 

Things are going well with my mentee, Fabian.  We both have difficulty paying attention to anything for a long period of time, so it was a little difficult starting out.  I've found we can talk best when we're doing something else, like shooting hoops or kicking a soccer ball at each other.  We haven't had any 'deep' conversations yet, but I feel like we have a really good relationship.  I talked with his teacher, trying to come up with better ways to connect, and one of the things she suggested was having us write letters to each other.  Knowing how I am with losing pieces of paper (I tend to write notes to myself on my arm, as I can't lose that easily) and figuring a 3rd grader like me would probably be even less organized, I picked up a couple Composition Books, and set it up so we each write several entries in one
 throughout the week, then exchange them, read what the other wrote, and write back.  Its working well so far, though we've only exchanged the notebooks once.  I wasn't really expecting much, but I am really starting to enjoy mentoring, independent of any sort of 'service' feeling. 

The past semester we've been here has been very much a learning experience.  Moving to this location has not made life either simpler or clearer.  We knew, intellectually, that it wouldn't 'solve' anything, but there was a feeling that it would give us direction.  Roughly six months into it there is no clear direction.  There are no blatant 'needs' that we can fill, no one has come to us with life and death problems, and not many minor ones, either.  Several months ago we had two girls show up right as I was getting ready to go to bed and first ask to use my phone to try and get a ride, then to see if they could wait for a ride indoors.  This was around eleven at night, and Evan and Steven were gone and I had to work at five or six in the morning, so I was pretty pissed.  So I had them in, lent them hoodies (as we have no throw blankets), and made them mac 'n' cheese and coffee (don't laugh, I know they totally don't go together, remember it was just three twenty-something bachelors living here at the time).  We talked for a bit, but we really didn't have much to talk about (they were both 14-16) and after a while we all started to kind of fall asleep.  Ev and Steve finally showed up and were able to take them home and I was able to sleep for a couple hours.  Initially irritating, but a really good experience.  At that time we were excited, and hoped things like that would happen more often.  So far, not so much.  We've been able to help kids with their bikes from time to time, and hanging out with Emanuel, Jeremiah, and Josh over here allowed us to play with some of the other kids in the area, but nothing big.  Evan and Steven, and Jan when she's over from Prock, are popular with the kids, and probably have more stories.  But somehow I feel very good about all this.  This is where we're supposed to be.  We're worming our way into the neighborhood, slowly putting our roots down and establishing trust with the people around us.  Now that more of us have bikes we've taken to riding together.  I don't know how to explain the feeling of riding with a pack to someone who hasn't done it, but there's this feeling of togetherness, consensus, and solidarity that makes our friendship stronger.  Right now thats what we're focusing on.  We've gotten hung up on this 'Project' and lost sight of what we wanted as well as a feeling of ownership.  We want to have fun with each other again, and though that may entail us doing exactly what the Project calls for, we're uncomfortable with that label.  Something to talk about later and in more depth.  Now, we're having fun, strengthening our relationships, and being available for other people.  Its exciting again. 

-Adam

Faith, Non-Ado & Surprise

I've been struggling a lot with my faith lately. Sometimes I feel embarrassed by or uncomfortable with the potential perceived cheesiness of living in faith. It's a stupid thing to do in my culture, and since there's no hard evidence that it's the right thing to do, I wonder how defensible it really is. And yet I go on believing because, at some subtle but pervasive level, Christ and the story of divine paradox makes sense to me.

I feel that this dissonance or cynicism with faith affects what I'm doing in this community. I feel, actually, that more people than me are dealing with this, but I won't speak for anyone else. I don't think that doubt mixed with faith is unhealthy—in fact, I think it's the only way to go. But when I've been unwilling to take that seemingly retarded step of talking to a non-material being, and when I've not only forgotten but actually intentionally ignored acknowledging Jesus in what I'm doing, I've noticed that it leads me to discouragement, purposelessness and apathy.

This is mainly because, when I stop believing in the relevance or even existence of God, I replace my original desires for this neighborhood—the ones for non-material, unmeasurable, painful, confusing, beautiful, wonderful circumstances that only God could bring about—with new ones for material, measurable, predictable, safe results that don't necessarily have anything to do with God. What these are, it's hard to say. Sometimes it's whether I find the very, very, very best way to spend the money that I'm supposed to put into the community pool; sometimes it's whether I talk about "something important" with my mentee (his family, his marketable interests, etc.); sometimes it's just a dumb hope that suddenly I know everyone and everything in the neighborhood is dandy. It's whether I've completed task objective X.382 with what degree of quality execution, and whether I can report back to the results-oriented (and affluence-influenced) commander part of myself with, "Task objective X.382 completed, sir," and then give the draftee part of myself a very stern and still unsatisfied salute.

Another guy in the neighborhood put it like this a few days ago: He feels that, compared to all the other anti-school influences in his mentee's life (including the kid's family), his saying once a week that grades and school are important is like pissing in the wind. In terms of actual grade improvement, it's completely ineffectual. I agree.

But something tells me that judging my success or failure by my mentee's grades, or the perfect way to spend community money, or whether people show up to a block party, or if I've gotten to know this many neighbors and done this many easily explainable things with them is a psuedo-materialist, pro-upward mobility, personal improvement-driven, achievement-hungry, ultimately unsatisfying and uninspiring and faith-lacking way to live. When I don't see results I get frustrated and feel guilty because there is only impossible success and inevitable failure, and even if success were reachable it somehow wouldn't be sweet enough to balance out the overriding majority of nothingness, even the nothingness of such success. For example, somehow I'm not very thrilled with the idea of an East Side kid getting a college education, becoming financially successful and growing up to be an incredibly gifted, fortunate, business-savvy ... suburban consumerist bastard. That kind of success just doesn't inspire me, and doesn't seem worth my time, and it doesn't seem like what God would be interested in. Not that God doesn't want physical, educational and social needs met—but that more information, more money in the wallet, more technology and more stability has never been the real answer. It leads to the kind of stuff-drunkenness that suburbia is plagued with, and it leads away from God.

So I guess I've reached a point where, like we want to do with the community center, I want to have no clear, nor hidden, agenda when I talk to people other than to be Christ to them. I'm not sure what this means yet, but it's definitely a lot more about how patient, open, bold, courteous, thankful, gentle, loving and kind I am with people and a lot less about how I can try to fix people, change something or do anything at all.

My highlight of the past semester with Javier, my mentee, was at the Christmas play. I didn't do anything at all. It wasn't one-on-one and there was no conversation whatsoever. I just sat there in the audience and smiled, made him laugh when he was supposed to be getting ready for his lines and clapped at the end. But the whole time I was just appreciating him, and I think he was appreciating that. And I didn't do anything at all except for show up and blend in.

—Evan

Bread

Yesterday, with the help of my mom, I baked three big loaves of bread and nine small ones. Since we gave our big heater to Becky, the lady who lives in a trailer a little ways down Airport, the house was too cold for the dough to rise in, so we kept taking trips back and forth from my car since the sun was warming it up. Eventually the dough rose and we baked the loaves. Then I set out chopsticks between two cutting boards for an improvised cooling rack. Although I only ate 1/18th of the results, I do believe it was tasty.

Since they have big families some of the people who answered the door when I was giving them bread had no idea who I was—from the look on their faces they probably thought I was a solicitor. But all of them smiled when I ended up saying, "I'm Evan, I know your dad, and I live just down the street, and here's some bread fresh out of the oven."

It was a little awkward, but I hope it's a sign that I intend to be a good neighbor, whether I get there or not.

hmmm....

I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know where anybody is. I don’t think it’s anybody else’s fault but my own. At first, everything was great, but then as soon as the semester started rolling, it was so much harder to see everybody. At first, it seemed ok because at least I could still see the kids and meet the neighbors. But it’s just not the same. How can you try to take care of the people around you when you can’t take care of yourself, right? We need each other to remind ourselves why we’re doing this in the first place. Just because we’re here to help doesn’t mean that we don’t need help too. I’m still trying to figure out what I’m supposed to be doing and I always thought this was my chance to see Jesus face to face.

 

I really wanted to learn more from this neighborhood. I just want to be a better person. But it’s so easy to give up. Recently, I met a neighbor. Her alcohol-reeked breath mouthed the words, “Tutor my kid. Help keep him out of trouble.” She had hope for me when I lost sight of my goals.

 

The little glimpses of Jesus I got came from the children. They were all still hopeful about who they want to be. They want to share more of themselves and help me become part of the neighborhood. I love this place. I feel like a part of a family.

 

I was skateboarding down the street and met two kids.

“Can we try that?”

“Sure, as long as you can keep your balance.”

The skateboarding lessons turned into five hours long of goofing around. I raced with two kids. The youngest one beat me to the mailbox.

Then more children came to play. They taught me how to pass, shoot, and dribble a basketball the “cool” way.

We talked about school, sports, and life.

It’s so awesome talking to the neighbors. I love how they worry when they don’t see me as often as they used to. I love how they include me in their prayers to do well in school. I love how we plan for dinners or barbecues. I love how we can text message each other even when I’m studying. At least, I know what’s going on when I can’t be around.

 

Eric and I found kittens roaming the neighborhood. Stricken with fleas and ear mites, they purr and meow for any food you can give them. We were able to take one of them to the vet to get his shots and tests. He was so cute and adorable! He was so malnourished that we didn’t even know he was more than four months old. He was so tiny! The good news is we were able to find him a good home.

 

Our next door neighbor’s cat is also pregnant. I hope the kittens will be ok.

 

Adam is here. He helped us see the big picture before. He inspires me when I can’t see things. Maybe it’ll happen again.

 

Hopefully, next year will be a great new beginning to start new relationships and rebuild old lost ones.

Oh, that's what i've heard too

younger kid #1 on bicycle: so no girls would be our computer partners at school
younger kid #2 on bicycle: we forgot to tell them our ages
younger kid #1 on bicycle: oh! that's why!

younger kid #2 on bicycle: hey, you have a girlfriend right?
older kid on bicycle: yeah!
younger kid #2 on bicycle: where does she live?
older kid on bicycle: over on the westside
younger kid #2 on bicycle: oh man, i heard there were some bad people over there!