WHEN I told a good friend that I was going to join a Christian community, his reaction was, “What? You, joining a community?” He might just as well have said, “But you’re an introvert, more comfortable in your own company than with others — a bit of a loner.” What he didn’t know was that I was following a dream.
My wife, Sue, and I had made a commitment to joining the community at Scargill House, a Church of England retreat and holiday centre in the Yorkshire Dales. We had been there as guests on a couple of occasions, and those visits had left me with a thrilling taste. I wanted more.
Had you asked me “More of what?” I would have found it hard to explain. Yes, it was something about the beautiful Yorkshire Dales, but more the lure of a sense of belonging: of coming home to myself in some way. Not that anything dramatic had happened during those visits: it was more like stepping into a new and exciting space where I could breathe as never before.
Despite those intimations of euphoria, we experienced several rocky moments on our journey to Scargill. We had to sell our home and find another close enough to Scargill for our daily commute. When I faltered, Sue picked up the ball and ran with it. Eventually, together, we made it — although we sometimes asked ourselves what on earth we were doing.
Scargill had also had its ups and downs. A few years previously, it had closed down and been put up for sale. Thanks to some faithful and loyal supporters, it was saved from extinction, resurrected, and opened its doors again (News, 27 March 2009); but there was no guarantee that it would survive. On one of our first trips to Scargill, we met Adrian Plass, who, with his wife, Bridget, was also committed to joining the community. When he asked us, “What are you doing here?” and we said, “We don’t really know,” he replied, “In that case, you’re on the same page as us.”
IN THOSE early days, the community — who ran the whole operation for the guests — was a microcosm of what it still is today: a mixed bag of people, each with their own stories, hopes, dreams, difficulties. The glue that held us together — mostly — was the Scargill Pathway of Life, created for that new community: a set of promises that we took as brothers and sisters.
We promised to “try our very best” to nurture our relationship with God and be open to him; to show kindness and love to each other; to “keep the moaning inside and a smile on our faces” until we could honestly and safely let it all out; to welcome strangers as we would welcome Jesus himself; to enjoy giving and receiving lots of treats — and (phew!) to laugh together, often.
Looking back on those seven years that we spent in the community, some words from one of the liturgies that we often used in chapel are fitting: “To fly on fragile wings, courageous, and a little scared.” Living in community was invigorating, stretching, exhausting, nourishing, tiring, painful at times. I remember one of the leaders saying that, when he went to bed after a difficult day, he would beat his pillow in frustration.
Relationships could become fractured, old wounds resurface, self-pity strut centre-stage, and anger erupt, or simmer in the wings. Community was a pressure cooker that brought the dross to the surface. On the plus side, people found and developed unused gifts, grew and matured, and discovered new wings. It was costly and rewarding. Finally, for anyone — community or guest — who might need it, Scargill aimed to be “a safe place to say dangerous things”.
I BELIEVE that those characteristics of the early days continue today as Scargill lives on, the community always changing — sometimes in a good place, sometimes struggling with internal or external pressures. Community members continue to come and go, some to fit in and contribute, giving and receiving; others disappointing, half-hearted for whatever reason, and perhaps going away empty. Guests come and go, too: some very welcome, others a challenge — the delightful and the demanding.
Scargill must have got something right, because it survives while other centres have closed their doors. This quote from Dave Hopwood — who spent many years at Scargill’s sister community, Lee Abbey, in Devon — sums it up in an extreme way: “When it comes to community living and its demands, I think of Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, who shared the Yellow House together as a ‘community’ for eight weeks. It was so tough they nearly killed each other; yet out of that time they produced 42 masterpieces!”
As for us, we’re still works in progress. We learned a new song at Scargill: does the melody linger on, or has the music now died? Where is community now? For us, it’s in our church, and in a small group of friends who meet regularly for what we call “Soup and Supper”: three couples, each couple bringing one of the components for the supper. We don’t pray while we’re together (for which I’m personally thankful; I’ll leave you to guess why), but we commit ourselves to praying for one another between our meetings.
THEN there is church, of course. We are fortunate in belonging to a church where we’ve found kindred and open hearts, warmth and welcome, deepening relationships. I have heard that there are churches and communities that are nothing like that. The community of 12 disciples was rough round the edges: a ragged bunch, sometimes pulling in different directions. With God’s help, they managed to hold it together — nearly.
We were well on in years when we joined the community. In contrast, a friend who joined the community in her early twenties (more flexible?) told me that she flourished without flagging, lapped up the experience, and was thrilled to be trusted with responsibility. Sadly, she found it too risky to carry that same attitude into ordinary life.
For us, Scargill was a place of becoming, for which we will always be thankful. We did our best to play our part, to join in the music; and now, the challenge is to keep the song alive.
Patrick Baker is a writer, and former member of the Scargill Community.
What being in community did for us:
- Stretched and enriched us
- Broadened our outlook/churchmanship/horizons/vision of God
- Tested our temper/fitness/love/ability to eat whatever was set before us
- Revealed our weaknesses/foibles/need for our brothers and sisters
- Increased our understanding/girth
- Used our gifts — and our weaknesses
- Challenged our selfishness/tendency to hide/secrets
- Gave us lots of fun/lasting friendships
- Accepted us as we were (not how we wished to present ourselves)
- Helped us to become more nearly the people God created us to be
What it didn’t do
- Squash us
- Take us too seriously
- Solve all our problems
- Make us perfect