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hey friends,

i'm back into a place where i can keep up with you, especially now since i'm so far away.  for friends that i haven't been in contact with over the last several months here's a little bit of an update for you.

over the summer walker house was destroyed in a flood, but a new community, the commonwealth, sprung up in it's place in a really amazing location downtown in bartlesville (away from the flood zone).  after living there nearly six months we were locked in a battle with the city over our existence and in the end our community of eleven or so people dissipated around thanksgiving.  it seems that living together, no matter how strong our hopes or faith, proved nearly fatal to our love for one another. i suppose as thomas merton puts it, "we are a body of broken bones learning how to be healed."  i suppose i was the biggest to blame. i forgot where my heart was for building the community and it was i that shut it down.

jeremy mueller, of the commonwealth, and i moved to the central coast near san louis obispbo to wait for his sister's wedding.  we were there for two and half months and after the wedding followed through with our plans to live in eugene, oregon.  well, we finally made it up here, but it's proving to be nearly impossible to work out.  i just found work at a trader joes, which is less than inspiring but pays well, and jeremy hasn't found work. we can't find anywhere to live. we've been staying with jimmy and robin brougher in the meantime. 

so here we are... not really sure what we're doing, but we're riding our little bicycles around doing it.

we definitely need community and love and encouragement. we're sort of all alone up here and didn't really think of that in the planning.

303.319.4660

under the mercy,

daniel

I can't really keep telling this story over and over,(it's too emotionally draining) so i've decided it would be a good idea to type it all out and let people take it for what it is.

The Commonwealth was a year and a half long project that i put my entire life into and as it developed and grew so did i.  the entire point was to love.  if we cannot love, then we are nothing.  i believe that to some extent the purpose was fulfilled.  the flood  that devistated the first location was when i saw this the most.  an entire community of people who believed in me, as well as friends nationwide, poured themselves into this tiny little place.  much good came from the commonwealth existing, but our part in being this body of Christ was severely over-romanticized.  we just wanted to be people who loved Elohim and out of that, love other people. 

the commonwealth, as simple as it tried to be, unfortunately (by means of it's very nature) attracted many people who could use it for it's enablement.  i don't believe in turning anyone away for their shortcomings. i don't believe in judging the worthiness of a person, either.  i wanted to love  people like Jesus loves us and  make people feel a dignity enough to care for themselves and crave for knowing Christ themselves.  But i am a small man who still doesn't know much about love.  In trying to be a leader i was too much of a push over.  when people abused the housing or the freedom from obligation that existed there i would insist people be personally responsible for themselves and everyone should be contributing to the life of community.  Everyone agreed, but only a few actually followed through.  Very soon living together felt more like religious politics and less like an organic expression of love.  if we cannot love each other we don't have the right to say we follow Christ.  I, personally, should have been looking for more outside support, but i was fearful of losing some sort of conceptual control that was never mine to claim.  All the while i was distracted with a romantic relationship that i saw God in very much, but was ultimately destructive.

Finally, it became clear that as a specific group we could not benefit from being together anymore. we stopped eating together, praying together, worshipping together, or really doing much at all together.  so i brought everyone together after much prayer and meeting with people outside the community and told everyone it was over and that starting immediately we were no longer the commonwealth but just people, which is what we wanted to be in the first place.  i gave everyone two weeks to work out where to go and what to do. 

afterwords i have been left with a sense of failure and a "now what?"  sense of directionlessness.  i spent myself on this for the last year and a half.  i think about how i tried everything i knew to do and even tried things i didn't know  in order to love people and it still didn't work.  although, i know much of this is false, i can't help but feel it.  love is much loftier than i realized.  truth that i have walked away with is that self must be the price of love and that God is good in every season.

So now, after all this, i believe that i need to stop trying to find a path that works.  paths seem to go different places than we originally sought, anyways.  so i've decided after much prayer to make steps, rather than paths.  i know what i'm passionate about and as much as i've learned over these years of communal living and traveling i believe i need to educate myself.  i've decided to go back to school.  some friends and i are moving to the west coast after the beginning of the year where i will pursue establishing residency and spend the next several months taking college required tests and preparing myself for the next steps.  if i could say one thing to anyone involved in my life during the comonwealth it would be this:

thank you for loving.  thank you for not giving up on me and giving me grace when you didn't understand why i did all this.  thank you for walking in obedience to the word by giving what you had.

under the mercy,

daniel walker

we want to be a blessing to you bartlesville, not a burden.

pray for us beloved.

i lost my car twice.  the common wealth flooded twice.  i was hospitalized twice.  i aquired my first real debt.  then, i was surrounded by masses of like-minded people who came from all over the country to support the vision than i feared was being washed away by doubt, fear, and dirty water.  our church and community poured into us while our city tries to stop us.  we are given so much more than we ever thought possible, and yet we are only beginning to understand what it means to be truly thankful.  we have stood together hand and hand and fought for each other as we battle our flesh and try not to forget why we are together.  we do not give up, although that is sometimes all we can do- just not give up.  the last two months have been the most emotional and defining time in our lives together.  i say all this to give you perspective. 

when i am provided for i say "praise God!"

               when everything is taken from me i have learned to say "praise God!"

when i think i have begun to understand some part of God's voice i say "yes Lord, come!"

                 when i realize i have no idea how to hear God without my own broken interpretation i have learned to say "yes Lord, come!"

Praise God who brings deliverance, praise God who shuts the womb!

i am still a very young, very weak person easily swayed by flesh and many times my words are futile.  i am sobered by what the Lord has given me in this time of longsuffering.  this is what the Lord has shown me:

when i have nothing i am aware that all i have to define myself by is the image to which God created for me.  when posessions and vanity ring shallow in my eyes, i can look deeply into the mirror and see God in me.  His kingdom is inside of me.  I find in Him everything i ever could call home.  My lust for understanding and the weight of holding too tightly to my posessions makes the arbitrary parts of life necissary.  Language, music, even the very idea of "each other" is only present because i am cut off from the source, my sweet yaweh.  speech is only my attempt to transcend my isolation.  this is why when i understand the holiness of certain moments i lose my words and go quiet.  Oh, that i could slow down.  The redbud flowers that grow outside my door understand the nature of God better than i.  Each new day they bloom new flowers that stretch open to engage the breeze.  every night they wither and fall to the ground. if only i had the liberty and beauty swift enough to just "be" like these simple flowers.  Such simplicity! 

I find that i cannot even play my drum or guitar or sing or paint or write or even dress myself without feeling a deep weight.  unless i do these things in humility they can easily become my flesh and i try to be like God. i get sick to my stomach when i realize i do these things in a manner that says "look what i can do!" How can a man be pure when he does not attend to giving God glory with his hands and feet and song and quieted words?  Without being intentional to share God's love all becomes vanity. all is vanity.

Oh Elohim (creator), i ask your forgiveness for my lack of faithfulness in asking your forgiveness!

updates:

-johno and sara are married now and will be returning to start working on their house(in our backyard) next week.

-rainbow and a few others will be leaving for a few weeks to go camping in montana with about 70 like-minded travelers who will be together to encourage one another and teach each other their trades so as to not depend on others so much (businesses, etc.)

-we received two new brothers this week. seth and darren.  they came to us from under the overpasses of oklahoma city and already God is revealing himself to them bothh as to why they are here.

-i am taking a very much needed vacation next week.  i'm going camping with my friend aaron in denver.

-we still don't know when jeremy is returning from europe (call us jeremy!)

in case there is any confusion here is our new/still the same contact info:

the commonwealth

612 Adams Blvd.

Bartlesville, OK 74003

Brokenpeople@sbcglobal.net

918.336.7174