Sitting down to eat together is a cornerstone of Italian culture. Perhaps you’ve heard about this or experienced it yourself, but for Italians food is a sacred substance and sharing it with others completes the rite. After years living in this country, I catch myself performing rituals of this culinary communion that I’d never imagined… Read More Sea Change
I don’t often dine beside the Parthenon, but as I stared at it this particular time, something felt familiar. I was leading a group of American students from my new part time job on a study tour of Greece for Spring Break. By this time we’d had several meals while gazing on the acropolis from… Read More Basecamp
Looking outside our windows these days of solstice, you would see the first hard frost of the season covering the hills, freezing the last fall leaves still hanging in the forest around us. Another bright autumn of reds and oranges is giving way to the greys and whites of winter. The snowline is clear just… Read More Solstice Greetings from Italy!
We’re back on the farm! We knew upon returning to Italy that the House of Peace would be a temporary place for us, and one of the key things to decide was where the kids would go to school. The preschool we found near La Casa della Pace was actually pretty nice for a short… Read More Back (to School)
After our last post, a friend offered this comment: It’s impressively optimistic to name a home “House of Peace.” Even the smallest inter-personal conflicts can disrupt a harmonious atmosphere, and I’m always impressed with groups of people who attempt to live together in community. Having watched a local commune in Oregon for years, as it… Read More 5 questions about community, 5 answers about immigration
Whether for the first day of Ramadan or for the annual gathering of an international Catholic community, we negotiate our separate experiences into our shared moments together. … Read More The House of Peace
We’re back! Our last post here more than a year ago spoke about the space of possibility and potential near the edges of one thing and another. We’ve been skating along the edges ever since, with little time to write or even to be clear what we’d say. Perhaps it’s still foggy, but at least… Read More Alignment
In Italian, le rive are the banks of a river or stream. The liminal space. I’ve almost certainly mentioned how much we believe in the power of this transitional space, but it bears repeating. We find transitional spaces in small moments in our daily lives as well as in the era of global changes we’re experiencing,… Read More On the banks of the RIVE
We went for a walk on Boxing Day, the first day in a while we all were up for it. It’s been a difficult year and an especially difficult fall, complete with several viruses passed between us for the holidays. We’ve joked we still need holiday rituals to make our own and, since Oliver’s birth… Read More Nurturing Traditions
You might be asking yourself, what really happened at the Helping the Helpers Training? That question will inevitably have many different answers. By organizing an intercultural, interdisciplinary training we knew participants’ takeaways would be as varied as their countries, mother tongues and work. So Reading Rainbow style, Kirsten is going to help us kick off… Read More Guest Contributer: Kirsten Voris Reflecting on Community and Practice
