In Austin/Central Texas 10 EI/Order/ICA people meet monthly for dinner and study. We rotate meeting in our homes. If the event is at your house you provide the main course AND the study. Everyone else brings other food or drink. We value the structure. Someone called it our collegium or an Eclesiola. It is important to us that we gather for intentionality including but not limited to socializing. On Sunday evening I led our most recent study, a look at 10 letters written in June to the OE dialogue about relating to the Order. This was done as an art form conversation with this report as its D-decisional product. We are together by geography, because we all showed up in Austin and Central Texas. We were not necessarily Order friends, some of us did not know each other before this grouping but we have sustained a collegial meeting for near 30 years. The membership has changed as people moved here or away. 6 of us moved here and joined this group with an ongoing life. Now we are George and Wanda Holcombe, Dane and Glenda Atkinson, Diane and Terry McCabe, Deanna and Ken Henry, and Stuart and Mary Hampton. We are mindful of our location’s long history with the Spirit Movement as the home of the Faith and Life Community. We share a common legacy of relationships. Our times in the residential order varied from 4 years to 20+ years. We hear from Human Development project and Order folk including younger generations who are in college, living all over the world and find us on social media. Our individual work and our retirement missions are all different. We all use methods from the Order in work, community groups, families and our churches. We are sustained in our lives. The Order and our monthly gatherings are a nurturing part of this.
