A career is a funny thing. College students get these career choices, and they can be a fairly arbitrary choice at a time when we are insecure and sometimes haven’t even become our own person. Nonetheless, many young people choose one, become a slave to school, then become a slave to debt, then become a slave to the lavish lifestyles that these high paying careers have enabled, and are pretty much expected to retire from this career at the end of our working life. Then, unfortunately, many women and men across the world have no choice but to continue work that is below a living wage or is brutal or abusing. At both ends of the spectrum, people so often get stuck and don’t ever move from this work that was chosen for them or that they chose at a fragile, ignorant age.

Over the last few years, as my wife and I have moved further and further away from a life of independence and seeking material things, I’ve realized that my current work isn’t what I’m really passionate about. It’s pleasant work, it pays well, and it has allowed me opportunities to follow Christ into the margins – even in the setting I’ve been in. But I began dreaming of the day when I could retire, maybe early, from my current work and enjoy the blessing of more meaningful work. More recently, in the last few months, I’ve rejoiced (though sometimes, admittedly, with a tinge of jealousy) with others in the community as they’ve moved into work that so accurately represented their passion. It’s been powerful to walk along dedicated people in our community who can make those job choices because of the way they choose to live simply. But I couldn’t quite see the shore for myself. I expressed these musings about work to the community, but always along with my disgruntled opinion that I felt like I should remain in this career for this season.

This Wednesday, I was notified (without any warning) that my current job is coming to an end at the end of this month. Though not my dream for my lifelong work, I have been at this place for four years and saw it as the pinnacle of my career in this field. So of course it came as quite the shock, and I have felt everything from humor to anger to excitement to personal disappointment and doubt.

Thursday, the community gathered for prayer as we always do. I brought my handmade instrument, sat down, and anticipated that sometime after prayer, I should probably tell the rest of the gang who didn’t already know. Instead, my wife and I were both asked to open up our hearts to everyone about how this was making us feel, and afterwards, everyone gathered around us and gave thanks for the blessing we are to them, affirmed me, and prayed for our doubts, concerns, faith, and open future. It was exactly what I needed.

Through what could be a dark and difficult time, I feel encouraged and supported by my wife and my community. One of our friends, a visitor from out of town, was especially quick to point out how wonderful it is for me to have this community during this time, and how incredibly more difficult it must be without it.

I am truly blessed, and I love you all. Thank you for this vivid example of how a loving community bears each others’ burdens – and may I heap my own love and support upon you when you next need it.

Here are some pictures – you can see how much a difference it will make from what the building is now to what it will be.  Then, dream with us about what we can do creatively, because you can build out from the wall at any point to make tree trunks, insert colorful glass or beads, inscribe words in the newly applied plaster, etc.  It will be a never ending creative project…I highly recommend anyone considering this type of exterior coating.

Sorry.. pictures coming soon!

Our many thanks to all our volunteers so far.  This project could not and will not happen without your help and support of this affordable housing dream.

Artisting Rendering of the Castanea Apartments

Next up…pictures of the now, musings on a diary we found during cleanup, and information on upcoming volunteer days.  Stay tuned!

Brian with two of his friends from the Napier area, just across Lafayette.

Here’s a slide show of about half of Brian’s pictures.  Looking back through these, I realize that we’ve come a long way!!

More to come!

A picture of the Castanea community (all of us except for Lincoln, who was napping) taken in the backyard of the 2nd Ave house.

In the spring of 2009, we all moved into the Chestnut Hill neighborhood. Josh, Brent, Amber, Daniel and Amanda all lived on 2nd Ave South, and Jason and Stephani with their five children, Lydea, Aidan, Carli, Jeremy and Lincoln, down at 1st Ave South.  We met in the fall of 2008 while seeking others to move into an intentional community setting in an urban area of Nashville.  Here’s a very very brief history of the people involved and how we began.

Jason, an organic farmer, father, and adjunct professor of environmental justice at Trevecca, and Stephani, full time home maker and home school teacher, had already heard an invitation by the local neighborhood association group to move into Chestnut Hill.  They had already been keenly interested in this neighborhood because of its proximity to their alma mater, Trevecca Nazarene University, and because they felt called to move in to this place in order to be good neighbors there.  Amber, a Trevecca alum who had visited a monastic community in Kentucky and was curious about life in community, was a part of Jason and Stephani’s Sunday school group, and decided to join in their relocation.  Brent was a student in social justice at Trevecca, and met Jason because of a proposal he wrote about college students living in Christian community off campus, specifically in a resource challenged area where their faith would be challenged and the teachings of Christ would begin to run head on into daily life. Daniel, an optometrist, and Amanda, a civil engineer/project manager, had been married for one year, and were seeking friends to join them in community.  Daniel had lived in a close community in north Nashville before getting married, so he and Amanda had both seen how living in Christian community could challenge them to be more faithful in very real ways.  After meeting Jason at a conference on intentional communities, they begin eating together, telling their stories, and dreaming of the possibilities of life together.  Josh, a former Americorps member who worked with Hands On Nashville, had lived with Daniel in the north Nashville community, and was also ready to move back into community.  He had been meeting with Daniel and Amanda, along with several friends and persons interested in the idea of a “new monasticism,” studying intentional communities and even seeking places to move.  Josh, Daniel and Amanda felt an immediate connection to what Jason and Stephani were called to in Chestnut Hill, Amber and Brent joined in, and we began the process of brainstorming, story telling, shaping and creating the community that has become Castanea.

We were asked to come up with a community name for a conference where we were invited to speak.  Since the People’s Front of Chestnut Hill and Being Intentionally Together in Chestnut Hill were voted down, we decided on Castanea.  Here is what we wrote about our new little community and why we chose the name of Castanea.

“Our journeys toward community life were joined after meeting in October of 2008.  In April of 2009, a family of seven, a couple, and three single persons moved into two houses in urban Nashville where we began practicing ways of sharing meals, prayers, work, money, and service in a spirit of hospitality to our neighbors.  Confident that God’s presence and work have preceded us here, we are seeking to discern a humble place as faithful neighbors in the Chestnut Hill community.  Re-imagining a sustainable food culture—growing, reclaiming, distributing, composting, cooking, eating—has been an emphasis of our active life together.  We are praying for the grace and wisdom to break through the economic, racial, and religious barriers that divide the people of God—practicing reconciliation with our neighbors and one another.

Our community’s name, Castanea, is derived from the genus of the Chestnut tree. We are located in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood of south Nashville, and it was specifically to this neighborhood that our community relocated, joining God’s work and imagining God’s kingdom together there. Chestnut Hill has a long history of drug and prostitution traffic, and is still infiltrated with both. Like the history of the Chestnut tree, which was all but wiped out by a blight in the early 1900s, the “blight” of addiction, along with the casualties of our country’s economic system, have all but taken the neighborhood past the point of no return. But we trust in God and believe there is hope for Chestnut Hill and for the residents thereof who have endured throughout all the years. Just as there has been a successful attempt at restoring the Chestnut tree, we see glimpses of restoration and life in Chestnut Hill, and are blessed to be a part of it by God’s grace.”

From the beginning, we looked for places to buy and fix up for our new community home, and even tried to buy 3 homes…but all doors were closed in strange ways.  In February, we found and bought an old apartment complex on Garden Street.  It fell into our hands, and we have seen over and over how God has been preparing us for something greater than what we could imagine.  It will be a place where all of us can live next to each other in individual apartments, and which offers unimaginable opportunity for things like ten affordable housing units, a fruit and nut orchard on the hillside, a green roof where the residents can grow much of their food, and a central common area with natural lighting and a huge community table for us to continue eating and sharing life together.  There’s much more to say about the Castanea Housing project, but I’ll let someone else chime in on all of that.

But look forward to a slew of pictures soon!  We have tons, and will try to post in some order – from the very beginning on the first day of cleanup to now, with almost all the demolition being completed.

Stay tuned!

The folks at Castanea