June 2009. The 17th. A few days more and half this year is over. The last thing I want is for 2009 to be remembered as being that lackluster year sandwiched in between good years before and after. Never. And yet, it is potentially, dangerously so. I think I was never happier this year than in those 4 days at church camp.
This is for so many reasons, I can only just begin to recount. I couldn't have been given a better room. One side of my open balcony faced the open grass field where we would spend 2 sunny afternoons playing hours and hours of frisbee, and the other faced the beach and open sea, where on the first morning there I would get up at 6 and run it's length. It is no Marriot Vacation Club, and it may have poisoned 150 of us with it's curious barberque during the last dinner, but it is charming in a way that allowed enough personal space even for the 450 of us from BMC in attendance. Perhaps it was having extended periods of QT even before the day fully began, seeing the sun rise in a straight line on the horizon, awaiting breakfast and worship. Or that my discussion group, while awkward for me in that I was the only one either not fully gainfully employed or a parent, was so thought-provoking. The 4 speaker sessions were brilliant, and so was the surprise opportunity to serve at the keyboard during communion on the last day. As was praying with the YAM comm, and attending their meeting tomorrow evening after agreeing during frisbee on sunday. And being in the company of so many familiar faces, interacting so much more that I've done before, as well as getting to know some really cool new friends, or simply getting to talk to a close friend about things that really mattered amidst the hand-clapping to performances.
So yes, I can honestly say I had not felt as happy as I did during those days in church camp. But what a difference a week makes. Already this reality of how these 6 months have been and are being spent casts such a heavy shadow over those to come. I wish to share just a little I learnt up there, which in my circumstances of human existence, are startlingly timely. I won't be specific, because I won't ever be able to until the appropriate time.
My deepest fear - dread, at the thought of...
My highest hope - dream, one that began as a child and now a remote possibility as a teen...
My deepest shame - desire, because I want to know the purity of love, but...
Tomorrow it may change. Soon some will change. Eventually, most will change. Questioningly, all may change. For now, I want to put what I've learnt into action, all for the experience of life on earth.
