AOTY Coup D'état

     I know everyone is probably wondering how we are doing in Pittsburgh, and it would be beneficial to our friends elsewhere to write about the amazing Formation House community and our adventures in the snow, but!....

I'm not going to do that....

(if you would like more of an update, check out Jay and Amber's blog-Adventures in Togetherness)

     It is December and I have been listening to music all year long to formulate an Albums of The Year (AOTY) 2010 list.  Just as this list has taken over my mind the past several weeks, I now take over our blog so I can share it with YOU!  It's just that exciting.  If you or someone you know is looking for new music, I recommend all of these.   To keep things sort of brief, I only wrote a few words about each album, but if you want to know more let me know.  SO!  Without further ado, I give you

 Ryan's Best Albums of 2010.

(also known as: The Best Albums of 2010 Period.)

10.  Broken Bells-  The High Road 

Fun album.  These guys are funky.  Honestly haven't listened to the lyrics, distracted by the beats.

9.  Josh Ritter- So Runs The World Away

Very low key.  Excellent song writing and story telling.  I think Mr. Ritter is a genious.

8.  The National- High Violet

Love their rhythm and orchestration on this album.  Took me a while to like their style.  Had "Bloodbuzz Ohio" in my head for weeks.

7.  Arcade Fire- The Suburbs

Upon second listen, completely fell for this album.  Heavy subjects and not as epic as past albums, but very catchy.  Every song is a win.

6.  The Crazy Heart Soundtrack

Watch the movie.  Great songwriting with a Country-Western flair.  Some of my favorite songs of the year.

5.  Sufjan Stevens- The Age of Adz

Good ol' Sufjan folk disguised in a mask of synthy-techno mess.   Excellent. 

4.  Mumford and Sons-  Sigh No More

Very positive message, great lyrics.  Upbeat banjo folky-folk. 

3.  The Tallest Man on Earth- The Wild Hunt

If you don't like his voice, keep listening. Great solo acoustic stuff, great lyrics.  Confessional and inspiring.

2.  The New Pornographers- Together

Completely overlooked excellence.  Have heard no buzz about this album.  I loved it on the first listen.  Very catchy.

1.  Dr. Dog- Shame, Shame

I hate to use the word "accessible," but if you are not into "weird" stuff, you might like these guys. This album is a lot of fun! Great music, great lyrics, a little bit of everything.  Now one of my favorite bands.

Any feedback?

After writing this, I realized we have not updated everyone in a while.  That needs to happen. More to come.  

-Ryan

Song of the South

      Moving to a different part of the country, Jenn and I have been thinking a lot about the differences in where we are from and where we are now.  I think we have whittled down our answers to several things that we like about living "in the North."  Pittsburghers would probably label themselves as some kind of "halfsie", not Northern or Southern but somewhere in the middle. (Yes that was an Office reference..)  However, we will use the Mason-Dixon line as our guide and for the sake of this post, Pittsburgh is in the North.
    Back to the point.  We are really living in a different part of the country.  We like Pittsburgh because it is local.  You do not find a big box store on every corner.  You can find many restaurants that use local, organic food and are completely locally owned.  Pittsburgh has a neighborhood feel.  We love the community of folks we have fallen into.  We cannot be more happy or thankful for the Formation House "Pilot" group.
    While it has been refreshing to live in a different environment, coming home to Georgia for Thanksgiving has been great.   Getting used to living in Pittsburgh has been one huge swirl of activity and adapting to our new home.  It has been gratifying, and I would not change a thing. But it is also true, that as your life moves and changes, you must remember where you are from.  Seeing Jenn's family yesterday (which, by the way, had %100 family attendance!) for Thanksgiving reminded me of the support and love they have given us in our journey.  We are at home here, and we know we are always welcome.  We talked with my family on the phone for a while and I also thought about how they have, in their own way, been there for us and supported us.  We know that we always have a place in Dallas or in Georgia for support and love.  I cannot put into words how THANKFUL I am to have two wonderful families.  God has blessed us immensely!

The Merrill and Locke Families, Thanksgiving 2010

  
This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for where I am from and the family that I have.

       "All the sweetest winds, they blow across the South."

To finish, some pictures of family.

Drewby

Locke family at our Wedding

Eric and Alyson- soon to be Newlyweds!

Papaw

Nanny and Brousin Danny

Jessica and Paul

Cousin Rachel

I Want to Ride My Bicycle

Don't I look great on my. . . . 

NEW BIKE?!?!?

Ladies and gents, allow me to introduce Bikey Blue, the newest member to our family. It only took me four hours of classes, 13 hours of volunteering, and ten hours of fixing up (roughly) to earn her, but now she is all MINE. My own. My . . . . .  precious.


Do I look a little excited? If you see me and Bikey riding around the city, don't be surprised if I have a big, goofy grin on my face.  And you might hear the faint traces of a song. . . .

"IIIIIIIII don't wanna work, I just wanna riiide on my bike all day!"

What can I say? Bikey Blue just makes me want to sing. And tell lame jokes: Q: What did the bicycle call it's dad??  A: POP-cycle! Q: Did you hear about the vampire bicycle that went around biting people's arms off? A: It was a vicious cycle.

(All right, I'm done).

Wishing you all the most fabulous of weeks!

A Day In the Life

Hello, friends. Jenn here. Ryan and I have been talking about a good place to go with this blog. There is a LOT we could talk about. . . . which we haven't been the most faithful about putting on here. You see, we have the best intentions about not being slackers on this blog, as we know you people out there check it daily and sigh resignedly when we've yet again *not* posted something by the time you go to bed each night. We are flattered, and regret to cause you such disappointment. But sigh no more! We are coming out of slackerdom to describe a day in the life of our community.

This is edge-of-your-seat thrill stuff people, so get ready. Brace yourselves; here's the run-down. Ryan and I wake up and go to work ridiculously early (Ryan especially). Ryan gets home in the early afternoon, me around 4:00--4:30; everyone else is usually home a little later as they get to work later. Each week, our community plans five meals that we will eat together. Each meal has two people on cooking, two on dish cleaning (Pittsburgh houses that were made a really long time ago have no fancy schmancy-ness such as dishwashers). That's ten opportunities a week to be involved with a meal, either cooking or cleaning; each person usually has a role in two or three. Which means. . . two times a week, at least, we eat delicious meals we have absolutely no responsibility for! Pretty wonderful, eh?

So. We get home. If one of us is cooking, we usually start around 5:30 or so. (To see our fabulous meal board created by the talented Amber Howard, head on over here to check it out! *Friends' blog plug*). Somewhere in the window between 6:00 and 8:00, we eat. The exceptions to this rule are Tuesday and Friday; Tuesday a friend of our community hosts a huge dinner for various people in our network of friends. This and/or leftovers from Sun. and Mon. provides our Tues. night meal. Friday is date night.

At 9:00 every night (or mostly every night, except for Fridays), we gather for prayer. I could write a whole different post about this. Karen (of Karen and Dave) has a special love for exploring different prayer practices and encountering God through different traditions. Ergo, we change up our prayer style just about every week. Lectio Divina, Taize prayer, intercessory prayer, imaginative prayer. . . . all these words would have been meaningless to me two months ago, but they are regular practices now. Quite the education! And it's only just begun.

Around 9:15--20, we pack our lunches for the next day. Then, guess what we do?? You won't believe this. We go to bed. Usually pretty early (especially Ryan and I), as our schedules permit no sleep-in time. Then we wake up and do it all again.

WHEW!! Seriously, not the most thrilling stuff to talk about, but if anybody out there is wondering what it  is like to be in an intentional community, there you have it. (Another Howard blog plug: head here for pictures of our common living spaces. Those Howards are way more on top of this blog thing than we are). What I'm leaving out, of course, is a description of how rich we are finding this style of life to be. We don't intend to always share apartments with other people. What we have now is not a long-term arrangement--all of us understood that going in. But what we would like to work toward is integrating this style of life into a more sustainable situation. It is wonderful to be around two other strong marriages and to learn from them daily. It is wonderful to have people to share chores with. The knowledge that there are people nearby with whom we can share our days and our lives on a regular basis is encouraging, and we are blessed beyond belief that they are such generous, loving people. The days are short; they fill up quickly and seem to rush by. Ryan and I are in disbelief that we've already been here for over two months! Our lives here, though definitely  not perfect, are very full. There is a quiet joy we are finding by living near and sharing our lives with good people who want for their lives some of the things we want for ours. Oh; and you've just GOT to see this place in the fall. Pittsburgh does fall better than any place I've ever seen. I'm just a little bit (or a lot) in love with this place right now, and daily feel so thankful to be here. (We'll see how I feel in February when I'm buried under two feet of snow).

Here's a few parting shots: a few weekends ago, Ryan and I went kayaking in downtown. . . for FREE! This past Friday, we went to the top of Mt. Washington, which overlooks the city. You can ride an incline up to the top, but we were cheapies and drove it instead. Here's what we saw; enjoy!

Everybody loves a free kayak ride!

Heinz Field, where those dang "Stillers" play.

Behind me is the incline, which takes you up the mountain to give you a view of the city.

Beautiful night, beautiful view, beautiful city. Wish I had a
better camera to do it justice.

Jay and Amber!

(hope you guys don't mind, I stole your picture off of Facebook)

      We would like to introduce you to our new friends Amber and Jay!   Amber and Jay are another couple that is apart of Formation House and we are excited to share their blog with you.  Check out their blog at http://jayandamber.wordpress.com/.
    
      They are very disciplined about blogging, much more than us. (we are working on it) They have been writing on different Formation House happenings and have lots of great pictures. Check it out!

Free Ride!

    Ryan here. We have been in Pittsburgh for 1 month and 5 days!    Let me start with some updates.  Probably the biggest  is that Jenn has started her placement at Propel Homestead as an assistant Teacher for 7th and 8th grades.  She will hopefully be able to write about the experience in more detail, but it has been a little different for her.  One of the main reasons for this is simply because she was a full time teacher last year but now, inherent in her job title, is taking more of a backseat role in the classroom.  However, she will be the first to tell you how happy she is to have NO papers or homework to grade and NO lessons to plan.  Gotta give a shout out to teachers, it is much more than a full time job! Anyways, making that shift from teacher to assistant seems to be kind of an awkward one no matter how well you do it.

  
     In other news, Jenn and I started volunteering for a Co-op in the area called Free Ride! I have to be honest, though, this is not self-less volunteering.  We are in it for FREE BIKES!  This bike repair shop operates on the "Repair someone's bike and they will have a fixed bike for a day.....Teach a person to do bike repair and they will have a repaired bike for a lifetime" -policy.  They teach people to be their own bike mechanics and use damaged and discarded bikes from around Pittsburgh to refurbish, sell, and teach about bikes.
     The concept is this:  You come and volunteer for two hours and you can go to one class on bike repair for free (during volunteering we helped sort out old wheels and tires).  There are  six classes that I know of that focus on separate parts of the bike. When you have gone to at least two classes, you can pick out an unclaimed bike of your choice from the shop to repair.  The bike is then appraised ($20-150) and you can earn the bike by volunteering for the Co-op at $8/hour.  Once you have volunteered your hours, you get your bike and hopefully have the skills needed to repair your bike!

     We took a class on Hubs and Bearings last Sunday, and are looking to volunteer and take another class soon.  Here is what the shop looks like:

Bikes everywhere.....

One hot bike mechanic learning to clean the wheel hub. (I love this pic!)

Why We Moved to Pittsburgh, Pt. Deux

Jenn again, for part two of last Sunday's post. Part one gave some background of our journey toward this adventure that we're on known as intentional community. Now, you might ask. . . . what is intentional community? That can mean a lot of different things for a lot of different people. A simple definition would be a group of people who have committed to living certain rhythms of life together. One intentional community might be focused on prayer; members might meet in a coffee house one morning every week to pray together. Another might focus on hospitality and share all their resources so that they might have shelter and food to give to disadvantaged members of their area. An intentional community might be people who live on the same street and decide to share meals together in a regular rhythm. Or, it might be musicians who meet and share music and inspire one another in their creative endeavors. Needless to say, there are a lot of different ways that this can be done and a lot of different purposes for which people choose to live this way.

We have several specific reasons for why we have chosen to live this way, at least for the time being. Of course, we wouldn't be here if intentional community were not something we had been thinking over and considering for a long time, as outlined in the previous post. We want to explore how we might grow and be strengthened in our faith and in ourselves by living closely with other people of faith in commitment to one another: as iron sharpens iron, so we want to be strengthened by the other couples who are here, as well as to discern if this is a way of life we want to continue after this year. Also, we want to use this space as a time to discern future steps for our lives in general. Let me preface what I'm about to say with this: we loved our time in Dallas and daily miss the people who were a part of our lives there. In fact, we may be back one day. . . at this point it's really hard to know. However, we largely felt unfinished during our time there. We moved after our wedding without a real plan. We never intended to settle there (at least not right after our wedding), and therefore kept our costs for our Dallas time pretty low: teeny apartment, no car purchases, no huge commitments. Last year, my job took up practically all of my time, at least at the beginning of the year (although it was a blessing and I could very easily see myself going back into teaching). We didn't know exactly what we were looking for, and in such a place of impermanence we had a hard time imagining our future. In no way were we ready to commit to the usual things that go along with married couples settling in a place. We knew we wanted to explore intentional community, but didn't know what on earth that would like. In order to move forward, we felt the need to launch ourselves into a situation which would allow us to dream and vision about the future, a place unfamiliar to both of us where new doors and ideas might be opened, new dreams awakened. This was very much a move for our strengthening as a couple as much as it was a move to practice living in intentional community. In fact, the two ideas are entwined in my mind. We could think of nothing more beneficial for our marriage than entering into an adventure together that would allow us a prayerful space to consider what we really want our life together to look like.  Free of overwhelming job commitments and in the presence of a community of prayer, we would have more time to determine our next step as well as inertia to propel us forward.

The blessing of it all is that this is already happening. Our short three weeks in Pittsburgh have by no means been perfect. Any major life upheaval causes some serious questioning and brings to the forefront a lot of uncomfortable emotions. There is stress, questioning, anxiety, frustration, fear, getting lost driving ( a lot) that attend moving to a completely new part of the country. But with all the tension of the newness, there are healthy discussions happening that need to take place. The uncomfortableness of uprooting our lives has shaken around some things that need to be shaken around, blown the dust off some old conversations, and allowed us to reach new levels of understanding that we hadn't experienced before. Not to say that this could not have happened had we not moved. However, the quicker we can move to deeper understanding of one another and our goals for the future, rather than continually hitting walls we often hit in communication, the better. This is a pruning time in our lives. We want to do everything we can to intentionally move our marriage forward, rather than to be forever sitting in the ocean, waiting for the waves to pick us up and take us to shore. Amidst all our questions, we are very thankful to be here.

And have I mentioned what an awesome city Pittsburgh is? Seriously. When I told people in Dallas I was moving to the Burgh, I was amazed by the amount of people who literally fawned over the place. Typical reactions: "Oh my gosh. You'll love it." Or "My entire family lives there!" (Really? Who knew??) "It's literally my favorite city in the world." I haven't known too many cities to receive such rave reviews. Before all the adulations from friends, about my only thoughts on the city had been "Steel. Grime. Football team." Now that I'm here, let me attest to the truth of these accolades. Pittsburgh. is. cool. That's all there is to it. Each neighborhood has it's own distinctive character. There are tons of markets, festivals, gatherings that happen all the time. There are several parks within walking distance of our apartment. There are coffee shops and restaurants in abundance that are not a part of a national chain. The mountains are beautiful. Pittsburgh has been rated as one of the top cities for culture junkies. There. are. TREES. Lots of them, tall trees, trees whose branches meet over the roads. . . . . need I go on? We have been here just a short time, but are loving getting to know the place. There is no reason to ever be bored here (unless you wanna be).

Think I'll leave you all with some pictures of a very Pittsburgh outing we had on Tuesday; Primanti Brothers sandwiches and a Pirates game. What's a Primanti Brothers sandwich, you ask?

It's a simple concept, really. Whereas in other sandwich shops you get a sandwich, some fries, some coleslaw, at Primanti's (Pri-MAN-ti's in Pittsburghese), they slop all those ingredients together in between two buns. Pittsburghers are nothing if not efficient.

Now some pictures from PNC park, from a game in which the Pirates destroyed the Braves and we left the game early due to torrential downpours which forced us to sit freezing on a bus which blew cold air onto our soaked skin for a good 45 minutes on the ride home. But hey, the park was beautiful!

Can't Comment?

Apparently, the last post is not letting people comment.  We were having some issues with the website when it was posted.  If you would like to, you can comment on this post.  Also, Jenn is going to get a 'Part 2' of the last post going soon!  

So. . . . We're in Pittsburgh.

Hi, loyal followers. Jenn here. This is really a shared blog, though I can't figure out how to add my info. to the profile. Ah, well--another time.

Since we've been here for a little over two weeks now, I thought it would be a good time to post about. . . . what exactly are we doing here? It's a good question. It's one we've asked ourselves several times in the last fourteen days. Why exactly would two people with well-paying jobs and a community of friends and loved ones around them pack up everything and move 1,200 miles away? Where it's cold? What exactly are we hoping to get out of this experience?

To tell our journey of how we got here, I need to back up a few years to Dec. 2007. That's when Shane Claiborne, author of The Irresistible Revolution and Jesus for President came to Harding to speak. (If you haven't read these books and you're up for being challenged in your faith, READ THEM. Totally life-changing). He is a part of a movement called New Monasticism. This does not mean that he wears robes and goes around chanting all day. What it does mean is that he and several other people have chosen to live in covenant relationships with one another. Their way of life grew out of friendships with homeless people in their area; they wanted to find a way to be the gospel among them, rather than just a mouthpiece. So, they took up residence together in the midst of their new friends and decided to share all they had so they could meet the needs of others. They called their little experiment The Simple Way, modeled on the Christians in Acts and in quest of the line stating that "there was no needy person among them."

I'm glossing over a lot of things. There is a LOT more involved in the decisions they made and what went into them, the journey that this little community went on (which you can read more about in the book! plug. plug). I share all that to share the background of what got Ryan and I thinking. We were not sure exactly which direction we wanted our lives to take after college and marriage. We were not committed to settling down in any one place, and recoiled at the idea of moving somewhere and devoting ourselves to houses and careers which we were not ready to take on. In his talk, Shane mentioned an organization called Mission Year. Participants would live together in an urban area and seek to know and serve the disenfranchised people who lived in the neighborhood. Their motto: "Love God. Love People. Nothing else matters." We were very interested, applied, got accepted, almost did it. But the program required participants to raise money. Due to our very late decision making (this was in June, we got married in July, the program started in Aug.), we decided that the timing wasn't right. So, we got married and moved to Dallas, but we never lost the desire for a different way to live.

Fast forward a couple years to Feb. 2010. We got news of a conference that was taking place at Harding University, our alma mater, which was all about intentional community (that's the stock phrase for the adventure we've entered into). As soon as I saw event postings on my facebook page advertising it, I knew we had to go. At the conference, we got wind of an opportunity of an organization called Formation House, a year-long training program for people interested in intentional community. This seemed like *exactly* what we'd been looking for. We began the process of applying and looking for jobs in March. There were some major hurdles along the way before we got here, the biggest of them being that the house in which Formation House was going to be, umm, housed, became no longer available for use due to some sneaky zoning laws enforced by some people in the neighborhood. The other couple who was committed to Formation House and living in Pittsburgh quickly set about finding apartments in which we could live and set up shared spaces to do life together. We, by the grace of God, found jobs before we got here, which eased our minds about making such a drastic move. Two weeks ago, we set out in Little Blue (my car), loaded to the max, and drove up the windy mountains in between GA and PA until we arrived at our new home.

Whew, I thought I'd get through all of this in one post, but it looks like this is going to need to be broken up. I'll leave you with another book that you should all read, which explains the purpose and place of intentional communities much better than I ever could.

Very readable, challenging explanation of intentional community; it has thoughts for everyone, even people who have no interest in intentional community itself. (Again, plug, plug!). Thanks for making it all the way through this. Part two coming soon.

Parting shots: Some pictures of us at our new favorite coffee place that is, drumroll please. . . . within walking distance.

City of Three Rivers

   For our first blog post, we have a big announcement...We made it to Pittsburgh!  We have been here a total of 5 very long days.  Our car is unpacked and we are busy meeting new people and getting to know everyone.  Moving 1,200 miles has turned out to be quite exhausting, in a whole lot of ways.   Mainly, we miss everyone back home (and I miss the Tex-Mex options).  The stress of moving is beginning to wane, and we could not be happier about this.

   For those of you who don't know, I am working at Starbucks in Oakland (the University district of Pittsburgh).  It is one of the busiest in the city and I can take a quick 15 minute bus ride from our block to work.  Public transportation is great here.  Jenn is working for Americorps.  After interviews at several locations, she has been asked to work at a charter school named Propel Homestead on the South side of the city.  This is exactly what she wanted because she can continue to work in the classroom with students.  Praise God for awesome provision! We have so much to share, but for now we will leave you with some pictures.

No road trip is complete without great books.

Our first picture in Pennsylvania!

This is our apartment complex.  A big. pink. house.  That is our window on the second floor, left.   The neighborhood is beautiful, driving around you can't really tell you are in the middle of a city.  The trees here are huge and Jenn is very happy to have shade.   OH, and our high today was 74 degrees.  Did everyone in Dallas read that? 74 DEGREES!  It's like the whole outside is air conditioned.



We are working on getting accustomed to our new home and are thankful for our new friends here.  We miss everyone in Dallas, keep in touch!!!  More to come.