Mayhill | A Collective Story

​I've pretty much been seething with anger all Fall, and thank Collective for being there. Some of the anger is totally justified (the way women are silenced), some not all that justified (maybe that student's fraternity brother really did spill a beverage on his computer?). But the emotional rollercoaster of fall 2016 has made me think a lot about community. That's what Collective is to me: community.

I grew up Episcopalian, but Berkeley, California Episcopalian, which means I never really learned anything about the specifics (I did take a communion class, but we just washed each other's feet. I'm serious. For, like, 13 weeks). 
Church was a building.

It was smells (of incense and the worn hymnal pages), and it was my mom. My mom and I went to church together most Sundays and then got twisty cinnamon bread at the Bread Garden Bakery. But besides my mom, Church wasn't about people, or friends, or a community. As I got older, I moved away from my mom, and the building, and even California. It wasn't until years and half a career later, when I was a very lonely postdoc in Canada, that I longed again for faith. For connection. For grace, really.

"Collective is engaging in love: sitting in silence, getting weekly hugs from the amazing people I am privileged to know, hearing beautiful music made by our own members, and participating in creating a community that makes a table for everyone."

When I moved to Deland in 2013 to take a job at Stetson teaching Russian history I didn't think I'd find a church— but I've been so lucky to find Collective, which is about community. You have all made me feel like I live in Deland, not just that I teach at Stetson. You have accepted me, even though I still feel new to town, don't have a family of my own, and always miss Sketti Night. In one of Ben's pastoral care sessions at Trilogy Coffee he talked about how if Jesus is love, then we are already existing in love, and it's just what we choose to do with it, how we engage with it.  Coming to Collective is engaging in love: sitting in silence, getting weekly hugs from the amazing people I am privileged to know, hearing beautiful music made by our own members, and participating in creating a community that makes a table for 

​I never understood giving to church—I really used to think of it like cost per hour (a 2 hour movie, or 2 hour church?). But if I believe in giving a percentage of my income to the government to support schools, transportation and social security, then I should give a percentage 

to support my local infrastructure and community. I give to Collective because I want to support a table from which no one is ever, ever turned away. Will you join me in giving, and help Collective to continue setting this table? 

In Love & Grace,

Mayhill 

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