Charles was greatly relieved to finally be “at home” in his native Hudson Valley. Yet he was generally quiet, clearly overwhelmed by being suddenly immersed in a close-knit community brimming with people and activity when he’d been used to a far more contemplative lifestyle. Even so, he responded especially to times of repentance and confession. In a meeting in November of 2008, after many brothers and sisters had openly confessed sins and shortcomings, Charles said:

“Today, listening to all of you, I feel a lot more comfortable that I am in the right place after all. I had a strong feeling, ‘Do these people ever stub their toe and cuss? Or wake up on the wrong side of the bed in the morning?’ – at least that! And I find out, yeah, that and more. I’m right at home! So I’m very grateful. I definitely stand guilty of all the same things that you’re mentioning. Definitely times when I am offended or gone into my own shell or whatever defenses I have, I certainly apologize for those. Sometimes when I find myself feeling weighed down by sin, I start ransacking my soul, ransacking my mind, and I come up with justification, I come up with all kinds of excuses, I come up with all kinds of things that act like an ointment or a salve on the wound. But the thing that’s helped me most is a line from one of the Psalms. It’s brought me comfort for many, many years. It just says: ‘Be still and know that I am God.’ When I let myself be still, I stop grabbing for the rope like a drowning person and just kind of let myself drown, and I find that I’m rescued – either directly, through God, or through another person that God sends along.”

In the weeks before Christmas of 2008, however, Charles went through quite an inner struggle. He resented attempts to help him, pushing people away and isolating himself.  In a member's meeting in March of 2009, however, he said:

“I guess you can tell that even people who need a wheelchair once in a while or use oxygen can sin with the best of them. It won’t hold me back at all. Something I want to confess: It kind of started coming to me during Advent. For quite a few years I really had been looking for some kind of community. This place definitely kept coming back to mind. But I think after I got sick, I don’t think I was looking for community as much as I was just feeling very sorry for myself. I was tired of going back and forth to the hospital, and oxygen and medications and not doing the stuff that I used to do. Suddenly I was just kind of scooped up out of hospital in Los Angeles, really like by angels, and brought here. By the time I arrived, what I was really looking for wasn’t so much community as it was a place where I could just make my peace with God. I was pretty much ready to die. After being here, even just for a few weeks, being around everybody, that started to change. I felt resentment about it changing, the way all of you were kind of getting to me. I still wanted to hold on firmly to my plan, just make peace with God and die because I couldn’t do a lot of the things that I liked doing. But by Christmas, I just couldn’t stand it anymore, trying to feel resentment or to push people away from me.

Basically what I want to say is a very big ‘Sorry.’ There are things I can’t do, but from all of you I’ve learned that there are so many new things I can do. I know you don’t like hearing flattery here, but if there’s ever been a time in my life when it’s been easier to see the face of Christ in the people that I’m around, it’s been here. I want to live as long as possible. The word ‘blessing’ hardly feels like the right word for what I feel from the time I wake up in the morning and smell coffee perking and hear people chattering in the kitchen, until I go to sleep at night. Being here with all of you is just incredible, and I’m sorry for the fact that it took me almost eight months to adjust to being here. And to people to whom I was very standoffish or tried to push away, I truly am sorry.”

 

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