Making Friends

Friends have been on my mind a lot in the last nine months. I think often of the great friends I left behind when I moved here from Fuquay-Varina. I had anticipated the sad parts of not living in close proximity to the people who were a dear and integral part of my life in Fuquay-Varina. I do miss my friends – I knew I would. I am blessed that those friendships have taken on a new form, but they remain.

Friendship is also on my mind as I try to make new friends in a new place, both here at Chestnut Ridge and in my new home town of Hillsborough. I have been working to forge relationships of trust and respect, caring and support with my new co-workers and new neighbors. Chestnut Ridge is a big place, not in terms of numbers of staff but in terms of acreage, and a busy place, especially in the summer. Sometimes finding time and space for building relationships with co-workers is a challenge. I’m grateful for the efforts they have made to welcome me and my family.

I haven’t just had to work on human friendships though. I didn’t really expect it, but I have had to work on making friends with a place too: the Community Farm at Chestnut Ridge. In order to bring out the best from the community garden, I have had to work on building an intimate relationship with the land there, to know it as I know my friends. Just like with people, this place has its particular characteristics, needs, and even dislikes. I’m still learning them. It’s exciting, challenging, and interesting work!

My friend Debra Murphy has written in her blog, “Getting to know a place (as with getting to know a person) is about the art of paying attention, of learning to receive hospitality, of acknowledging needs not your own.”  My experience has been that the rewards of practicing this art are tremendous. It is in the “paying attention” and in the receipt of hospitality that we can find God in a place and in people. When we can acknowledge and respond to “needs not our own” we are participating in God’s work in the world and creating community. This is what faith-based community gardening is all about!

Molly Kacal, one of our wonderful Duke Divinity interns, has been working with me in the community garden two days a week. Recently, she commented to me that she had noticed how the plants in the garden had grown and changed. I had to smile. Ah, Molly, you are becoming friends with this place too!