When I was twenty-three I was traumatized from Dilaram and connecting with both new and old friends. C. and I became neighbours in a rooming house in Mount Peasant on a beautiful street full of big trees and lovely character homes. We had been neighbours two years earlier in another such house where we met and became fast friends. Now we were not quite roommates and spending a lot of time together. She also taught me everything I needed to know about lesbians, feminism and patriarchy/rape culture. She was one of my mentors. The house was full of bohemians and other misfits. None of us ever became close but there was a sense of community and a lot of us still liked each other even if our lives were off in different directions.
I was attending the Mennonite House Church, a small collective of politically and socially progressive Mennonite artists and intellectuals. Lovely people, but hard to reach as I had been used to the model of Christian community I had been nurtured on. Dropping in unannounced was not done here and everything had to be carefully planned and agreed on days or even weeks in advance. They were supportive but I missed the intimacy of my old friends from Live-In and St. Margaret's. With C I had a friend but no community. With the Mennonites there was community but no real friendships.
I was contacted by an acquaintance from St. Margaret's whom I knew from when I was fifteen. We began visiting regularly and drew others into our friendship. The prayer group was re-initiated on my suggestion and again was restored to me a sense of real Christian Community: friendship and community. This lasted for about a year. I left as certain changes happened in my life though I tried to stay in contact. It was as though I'd been pulled away from them and landed in a very anarchic, chaotic sense of ersatz community made up some of the most dysfunctional Christians I had ever known.
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