The Village Blog

Living In The Time Of Coronavirus

Living In The Time Of Coronavirus

We are now approaching two months living into this new disrupting personal and social condition.  Impacts have been various, determined by physiologies not yet known, preexistent medical conditions, economic placements, psychological dispositions and, sadly, racial...

Peace In The Time Of CoronaVirus

Peace In The Time Of CoronaVirus

Peace In The Time Of CoronaVirus In Mid-March, only days ago, after the meaning of the CoronaVirus impact became clear, and we feared for life, and markets crashed, and people began hoarding, one of VEC’s board members shared at our virtual meeting with an abrupt and...

Words of Welcome for VEC’s 3rd Anniversary

Words of Welcome for VEC’s 3rd Anniversary

Village Exchange Center's 3rd Anniversary Celebration  The following content was originally given as the opening speech at our Anniversary event. January 22, 2020 We are living in critical, insecure times, environmentally, socially, and politically, and one of our...

Being Saved for the Life of the World

Being Saved for the Life of the World

“Beauty will save the world,” is an intriguing phrase out of a Dostoyevsky novel which has been notably repeated and explicated within the Christian Russian Orthodox tradition.  Beauty understood as a fold of ultimate reality is not new to human experience. In the 4th...

On Your Own Feet, Belonging

On Your Own Feet, Belonging

Many of our refugee and immigrant partners at the Village Exchange Center find themselves in a diaspora condition, lifted out of land and culture, seeking to keep critical values and mores in a new social context.  For these communities, values are often rediscovered...

Spirituality of Belonging (II)

Spirituality of Belonging (II)

As we follow the increasing frequency of violent events, of white supremacists, of hatred toward immigrants, and aggression toward the other, people of good will are searching to find avenues of healing and wholeness.  At the Village Exchange Center, in all our areas...

Spirituality of Belonging (I)

Spirituality of Belonging (I)

At the Village Exchange Center we sometimes engage with cultures and people who are baffling to home grown sensibilities, but often encounters are unpredictably and wondrously enriching.  Notably, the Center recently hosted a Hindu Puja festival at which the young and...

Word of Blessing from VEC’s Anniversary Event 2019

Word of Blessing from VEC’s Anniversary Event 2019

  Almost two years ago when Amanda and I set out on this journey to create the Village Exchange Center, among the first we talked to was Joe Horther who generously welcomed us and shared his wisdom and support.  Joe talked about creating a space of belonging. ...

The Center Holds

The Center Holds

  I felt a playful tapping at my waist as I stood in line at McDonalds.  I turned, no one there, but on my other side, giggles.  It was an impish, gleaming Sam, one of our boys from the Center.  “What are you doing here Sam?  Are you getting a burger?”  “No, I...