Life Together

To bear the burden of the other person means

involvement with the created reality of the other, to accept and affirm it,

and, in bearing with it,

to break through to the point where we take joy in it.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 'Life Together'

Throughout the seasons various friends and family, old and new, weave in and out of life at Windstone Farm Community: spontaneous informal gatherings, planned events and conferences, work parties, summer internships, reading groups, music nights, bonfires, school groups, study blocks, snow days, art retreats, ski treks, bushwacking, cider-making, cookie-decorating, neighbourhood potlucks. None of these gatherings are completely distinct each from the other - it is thus that friends and families, old and new, are shared and intermingle, and enrich and effoliate (to use a Tolkienian term) each others’ lives.

Together we learn more about the land, its innumerable inhabitants, and ourselves - and together try to learn how to live well in this place we have been planted. We laugh lots, cry some, work and play and sing and pray and eat and drink

and share many stories.

This is life in community, together.

Community, then, is an indispensable term in any discussion of the connection between people and land.
A healthy community is a form that includes all the local things that are connected by the larger, ultimately mysterious form of the Creation.
In speaking of community, then, we are speaking of a complex connection not only among human beings or between humans and their homeland but also between human economy and nature,
between forest or prairie and field or orchard,
and between troublesome creatures and pleasant ones.
All neighbors are included.

Wendell Berry, ‘The Art of the Commonplace’

Statement of Faith: The Nicene Creed

The Nicene Creed is one of the most influential creeds in the history of the church, because it settled the question of how Christians can worship one God and also claim that this God is three persons. It was the first creed to obtain universal authority in the church, and it includes more specific statements about the divinity of Christ and the Holy Spirit. Windstone Farm Community is a distinctly Christian community that operates from a historically creedal position. To that end:

We believe in one God,

   the Father almighty,
   maker of heaven and earth,
   of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ,
   the only Son of God,
   begotten from the Father before all ages,
God from God,
Light from Light,
true God from true God,
   begotten, not made;
   of the same essence as the Father.
   Through him all things were made.
   For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven;
he became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary,
and was made human.
He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered and was buried.
The third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures.
He ascended to heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again with glory
to judge the living and the dead.
His kingdom will never end.

And we believe in the Holy Spirit,
   the Lord, the giver of life.
   He proceeds from the Father and the Son,
   and with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified.
   He spoke through the prophets.
   We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church.
   We affirm one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
   We look forward to the resurrection of the dead,
   and to life in the world to come. Amen.