231 Bottles of Beer on the Wall

Last evening Marty Klaif, Diana Malsky, Harvey Baker and I took Jenny Upton and Dan Questenberry out to dinner.

Among other things all of us have served, at one time or another, on FIC's Oversight Committee (the subgroup that steers the ship between Board meetings) and our "official" excuse for last night's dinner was recognizing that Jenny had recently retired from active duty with the Fellowship. We figured she'd appreciate dinner (and a bottle of Washington State chardonnay) with friends more than a commemorative bowl or a wall plaque.

Dan & Jenny and Marty & Diana live at Shannon Farm in Afton VA. Harvey and I drove there Tuesday for two days of Oversight meetings with Marty (we three continue to be actively involved with FIC while Dan, Diana, and Jenny have gone on to other things)  Even though it was a Wed night (not exactly the high point in a restauranteur's week), we had to wait for a table at the new seafood place in nearby Nellysford, and thus dinner stretched into a three-hour affair. 

While awaiting delivery of our hors d'oeuvres we calculated that among the six of us veterans we had a cumulative 231 years of community living under our belts—with another six getting tacked on every time we sing Auld Lang Syne. That's a lot of meetings. One of the very best aspects of community living is that you do it with others, and last night was a time to celebrate long standing connections in all directions across the table.

Ankle Boots and Raincoats
While the conversation was free-ranging, the one constant all evening was easy laughter. Which I suppose is as good a marker as any for what it takes to thrive in community. If you can't occasionally step back and be amused by the absurdity of some of the dynamics we encounter in the nutrient-rich environment of community, things can get pretty exhausting. If you take everything seriously, you're at risk of spending every day ankle deep in bile and embroilment, growing ulcers on the side.

How bad can it be? Earlier in the week the FIC office received this communication from a correspondent who was unhappy with my being firm about not permitting hate speech and anti-gay statements on our website:

The fake, truth and God-hating Laird Schaub deleted my account because of fraudulent emails that he sent. He is a member of the gay mafia and wants to legalize child molestation.
 
Then he created fake accounts on ic.org to make fun of me. With so called Christian Jews self identifying as khazars. If Laird Schaub is a real person, which I seriously doubt, he is a very sick person. Whoever is using that alias is a spineless, ballless coward; an absolute vermin of the nth degree.
 
When The Lord's vengeance is poured out upon him justice will be served.

Can you feel the love? I'm telling you, being in the community business is not dull. In the case of FIC correspondence, the forecast every day is the same: cloudy with a chance of nutballs.

The moment at our dinner table last night that brought us closest to tears (of laughter) was when we came to agreement about the necessity of having a fine-tuned bullshit detector when wading through community dynamics—and ankle boots and a raincoat help, too (so you don't have to wash your hair or change pants so often). Be sure to get yourself some.

Now that it's the morning after, I'm glad we didn't try something sophomoric last night, like toasting every year we've known each other. We have another day of meetings today and hangovers do not associate well with quality thinking. At least we had enough oversight last night to not make that mistake.