Bradley Remembers Koinonia

Despite what a person might think, in winter it has never once been cold at Koinonia. Once upon a time, when I was in an exceptionally good mood, I proved this to myself definitively. I was in my sophomore year, and it was minus 10 degrees with no windchill outside, and I walked across the Koinonia grounds in just my swimming trunks to go visit my friends in the Columbine cabin. I honestly didn’t get cold, though it was a brisk walk. What I’m still curious about to this very day is whether my proven theory would hold up under those conditions with a moderate windchill.
But my friends down in the Columbine didn’t really understand why I did that. They thought maybe I wanted to gather them up for a late night sauna session down on the beach, but in the winter you normally take off your shirt only after the sauna warms up. When I realized that my arrival was being met with pure confusion instead of cheers of adoration and pats on the back, I decided to turn around and run back to the Sumac cabin.
Many times I’ve thought about what I did that day. Koinonia is probably the warmest place anyone will ever visit. That holds true even when it’s winter and ten below zero outside. Wherever you are on the grounds, there’s a fireplace nearby. I think of all those fires I’ve seen burning in all the many Koinonia firepits outside, and in all the fireplaces in each of the buildings with all those different people. Hot chocolate in hand of course. All those marshmallows, and graham crackers and sticky fingers that get wiped on pants and jackets and sometimes napkins; how many times have I rinsed off my hands in the lake? How many times have I jumped into the lake thereafter? The night swimming occasions are numberless. So are the conversations. And the games we’ve played, some of them at a table, or on a floorspace in one of the buildings, or on the lake, or the beach, or the upper field, or out among the trees in pitch darkness under the stars.
If a place can be loved, then Koinonia is one of those loved by many. Yet it will always be the people, not the place itself, who give the place its meaning.

Brad Williams