Peace

Six days changed my life. July 8-13, 2002. One simple week of summer camp transformed my very being. Not because anything special or miraculous happened on the outside, but because I was in a place where I was open to hearing God speak to me through the lives and voices of so many wonderful disciples. Now, eight years later I am reflecting on what has happened since that moment, and remembering the lessons I learned. These are a few of the things I heard.

Have you ever had the experience of God calling you and you say, "Me?" You know what God says? "No! Us!" In God there is no "me." In God there is "us."

There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.

If you feel like God is calling you to anything or you are wondering if God is calling you to anything. If God keeps calling you and you keep telling God he has the wrong number, this might be the skill group for you.

God is real. God calls us. God empowers us.

You are a person of peace.

There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

Come. There is room enough for all of us. Please come.

Do you think God stopped talking when the Bible went to print? Do you think God has shut up?

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.

Every time you feel a hunger within you for something more, every time you share bread with each other, remember me. Remember how much I love you. Remember what it felt like to believe you could change the world, to believe the world was already somehow changing. And when you're feeling alone and need strength, when you feel like you have lost your direction, come back to the table.

All of these were simple statements that spoke directly to my soul. I began to understand exactly what words like "peace" and "justice" that get so easily thrown around truly mean. I began to understand that one cannot exist without the other. I began to know what it truly means to live out a calling. I sang and I danced and spoke and laughed and cried with a passion that I had never known before. I lived in the presence of the holy spirit.

So much has changed in the past eight years. Some of it has been good and some of it has been not so good. Some of it has been wonderful and some of it has been painful. But I look back now and I am reminded of why I set out on this journey in the first place, and why I continue. I am hopeful. I am encouraged. And I continue to seek out those moments of peace everywhere.