We traveled to Michigan this month and made a rendezvous that has been in the works for about 2 years! It was very momentous for our family. As I told the Millers, "We have met Quakers and we have friends who are plain, but we have never met anyone with both qualities at the same time!". This was a super, special meeting!
But let me back up a bit! Starving for fellowship, I was searching the net for any sign of plain dressing Quakers with families. One can find plain but there are very few families! I happened upon a news article in MLIVE. That link is here. http://www.mlive.com/living/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2012/09/quaker_families_live_in_faithf.html
I was so excited! I started searching names in every direction. I looked up information about their meeting, read his blog, and finally found a phone number for this family. Then....I had Daniel call. (If you know me, you know I hate phones!)
Guess what! They share many of our core views! Social justice, equality, hospitality, views on the Bible and education, home-birth! The list goes on and on!
Scot, the patriarch of the family, has lived a colorful life. He has witnessed and experienced the ingredients that go into making "brokenness". He himself has experienced and participated in, the ravages of violence, indifference to suffering, and the deadening effects of drugs and alcohol on the misery. God lead him, called him, to a new life. Not an altogether new life, not a life of escapism from his former life. No. Scot feels called to a life that constantly looks back and forward, seeking to make an impact on those who suffer in a world of indifference and separation.
Currently the Millers are following a leading for an ambitious project. They have recently purchased a small farm where they will be focused on growing community alongside food! Scot Miller, having grown up on the rough side of Detroit, has a big heart for social justice and hospitality. He dreams of a place where people can connect on the basic level of food and grow relationships across socioeconomic,and/or racial lines. His vision is a community where people in crisis can be supported and nurtured to their fullest potential. He sees a people who extend their skills and knowledge to one another....all circling around the common hub of food.
I have to admit, so often I meet people who tell me about community with stars in their eyes. Having experienced first hand the difficulties of community, I am pretty skeptical of their commitment to it. The same goes with farming. It is not for the weak at heart! But this city boy and his family have been in community and farming boot camp and they have survived!
Scot has been taking steps to reclaim his life and make a difference for others for awhile now. He has worked with alcoholics and in homeless shelters. The family has welcomed many struggling with wholeness into their midst. They understand and have lived with the everyday challenges of what it means to be mentally ill.Although life-experience has been an integral part of this family's training, Scot, in recent years has acquired his bachelor's in social work and a masters in divinity. He now teaches them to others as a professor!
The family, as a whole, has been farming now for several years and have the stories to prove it. Also, Scot has been milking in a commercial dairy. This family is not of the starry eyed, uninitiated class!
We hope, in the future, our families can join forces, stemming from our shared love of God and his goodness and grace. Lord willing, we will meet again in the spring of 2015.
We’ll build a land where we’ll bind up the broken
We’ll build a land where the captives go free
Where the oil of gladness dissolves all mourning.
Oh, we’ll build a promised land that can be.
Come build a land where sisters and brothers,
Inspired by love, may then create peace:
Where justice shall roll down like waters,
And peace like an ever flowing stream.
(UU hymn)
Be sure and check out Scot and his family on facebook and at their blog! www.sandhillcommunity.blogspot.com
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