Ah, the first Youth conference.

Youth conferences make up the majority of the summer here at Montreat, and they're the hardest conferences for A/V Crew. Lots of movie clips and other audio-visual demands, which is us. While being there at 6:45am is significantly less than exciting, I had fun juggling microphones today on headset and at the board. I had the same kind of fun I have calling a show when stage managing, only with less stress. Win! And there is definitely a power you feel when you crank up the volume to blast Relient K's cover of "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything" in a huge auditorium.

I've always felt slightly out-of-place in Youth conferences and events like this. I used to completely subscribe to them - I remember Richmond District Youth Retreats when I was in middle school, and how moved I was by all the proceedings, but by the time I went to, say, Eagle Eyrie (which was later, in high school, I think), I found myself disconnecting and feeling lost. But, really, it's not my language. There is a style, a very specific musical and worship style that I only know to call "contemporary". There's "contemporary Christian" worship and music that seems to reach the majority of my generation in youth groups. Not me. (Incidentally, this style is also in musical theatre. It's slightly more creative in musical theatre than it is in churches, to be frank, but my generation swoons over music like Spring Awakening and now Next to Normal that this kind of emo/punk combination, and I just don't like it.) I now shudder at the style because of the continued threat of "contemporary Christian" worship and music completely taking over more "traditional" liturgy. I'm sure I will post a lot more about the validity and draw of liturgy throughout the summer, but I can honestly say that I connect more to choirs chanting a psalm than to people strumming guitars. I don't have Christian bands on my iPod - I have Handel and John Rutter. I may be in the minority of that in my age group (PARTICULARLY on the iPod), but still. One of my biggest pet peeves is when people say, "Our worship is lacking in spirit, maybe we need a contemporary service." If a church is truly lacking in spirit, adding a contemporary worship service is only going to be a temporary solution. If a church is lacking in spirit, it means it's lacking in what gives the words meaning, be they the King James Version or "The Message". If the wall of your house is crumbling down, painting it green isn't going to help. (slight rant over.)

One thing I do take a bit of an issue with is "Buddy Christ". I use the term used as a marketing scheme in the movie Dogma (see image). Dogma exaggerates it to hilarious proportions, but the idea of "Christ as your BFF" permeates a lot of "contemporary" worship, particularly aimed towards Youth. I saw it a lot today during keynote. While, yes, I do absolutely believe in having a personal relationship with God, and I do believe that the humanity of God through Jesus Christ, God made manifest and human, is a key part of the Christian story, I hesitate to put a lot of "Christ-who-lives-next-door" in the forefront of my beliefs because there's the risk of cheapening God. Of lessening God. Of becoming (Bill will love me) "too familiar" with God.

The balance is key. A distant God is not a Christian God. God came to earth seeking relationship with us. He came and walked with us and wept. For goodness sake, he changed water into wine so that a party could keep going. He translated his story from abstraction to flesh, into a way we could begin to understand his message.

But this is only meaningful and miraculous if you acknowledge the awe and mystery of God. It's not, "Your best friend will be there for you whenever you call." It's, "The Lord of Heaven and Earth will be there for you whenever you call."

I like teacher imagery. That's me. If I could name a group of people who have been the most important to me throughout my life, it wouldn't be my friends, like I think most others my age would say. It would be my teachers, whether they are formally my teachers or not. I am so blessed to have incredible teachers. It's almost ridiculous. People talk about "the teacher that changed their life", and I've at at least 15 that have changed my life in vastly different ways. And these tend to be people that I'm absolutely in awe of. Knowledge, insight, just thinking - these things mean so much to me, and I'm absolutely blown away by the brilliance of people around me. My teachers, my brilliant teachers, are those who share that with me, who let me partake in that, who will have conversations with me that no one else cares about. Who go far beyond what their job description requires of them. Who let me sit in their office during their lunch break and pick their brain about semiotics or Alba emoting. Who will answer late night e-mails. Who will send me random links to things I might be interested in. Who will continue to push me and push me and push me because they know I can do even more than I think I can. Who will read unassigned paper after unassigned paper after unassigned paper. (That particular teacher would get an 8-15 page paper from me at least every month, about some concept I was grappling with at the time. I graduated and still wrote him papers. I once wrote him a 191 page paper about Sweeney Todd. I found out visiting him a few weeks ago that he has a "Colleen" file - solely for my papers.) The fact that these brilliant people take their time and energy to actively care about me means more than I could ever say. Every so often, I look back and think with amazement on my continuing relationships with my teachers, how they continue to influence me and nourish me. It is astounding.

For me, God is the greatest teacher. The most brilliant, radiant presence. I hear the songs that are written for him, in praise of him. The Rutter Gloria. The Allegri Miserere Mei Deus. Expressions of praise that are themselves magnificent and yet only touch at the truth. I see all of this, and then I realize my own place in the heart of that God. THAT is the miracle. Too close, I feel, diminishes the wonder. I like to live my life in wonder and celebration.

That's my current beef with some of the imagery in Youth conferences. I noticed that I also felt more connected with the conference for preachers last week than this youth conference. I think because with the Youth conference, it's for people who are involved in a fellowship group, who are Christians largely out of habit and parental involvement, encouraging them to choose a Christian life. The pastors were coming from already having made that choice, and were coming together into a group for really the first time - while of course pastors live and work in a community of faith, I'd imagine it must be difficult to be constantly asked for spiritual guidance and there are significantly less pastors in any given area to fellowship and commiserate with than there are church-goers. When I heard them joking about theology, I clearly didn't understand their inside jokes, though I could tell there was history there just by the way they said "Schleiermacher" and by the laughter - the relieved kind of laughter of finally being with people who understand your jokes. Coming here for me, I've been able to talk about the very frustrating difference between "trespasses", "sins" and "debts" and it's not weird. (What IS weird is "debts". It messes up the rhythm of the next part of the sentence. Presbyterians, really.)

In other news, the Tonys were Sunday and I chose not to watch them. I'll see them eventually. This is a big deal for me. Compare this to 2006, when Sweeney Todd lost the Best Revival of a Musical Tony and people actually offered to bake me a casserole, I was so devastated. I won't say much about this, but that it has to do with not storing up treasures for yourself on earth, and when I do watch the Tonys again, it'll be when I can watch them as a celebration of the work we do.

I've been reading the Gospels... one Gospel at a time. I started with John because of the rich imagery, and suddenly became very interested in what parts of the story each gospel-writer brought to the forefront. John has a lot of exclusive language, the "You get to God through me. Period," talk. Understanding that John was written later than the other Gospels, I wondered about what kind of persecution these early Christians were facing - what, in the world, was the gospel-writer responding to? We cannot help but be influenced by what's going on in the world around us, and we cannot excape our own point-of-view, so I'm interested in the point-of-view of the gospel-writers. I'm on Luke now, which seems to me to be the most difficult of the Gospels, because of some of Jesus' statements. They're not nice, they're not easy, and they're not the Beatitudes. They aren't "Blessed are you." I jokingly call Jesus in Luke the "angsty Jesus". Cases in point:

Luke 2:41-49. Twelve-year-old Jesus gets left behind after a family trip to Jerusalem. His parents freak out and find him chilling with the teachers in the temple. When his parents, clearly quite anxious, find him, he says, "How is it you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" (Easy translation: "Aww. He was with his father, God, the whole time. That's cute." But actually, Jesus was also the child of Mary and Joseph and they felt for him like any parent feels for their child. Imagine being Jesus' parents in this situation.)

Luke 8:19-21. "Then his mother and his brothers came to him, but they could not reach him for the crowd. And he was told, 'Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, desiring to see you.' But he said to them, 'My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.'"
Again, completely blowing off his human family. This is actually classic teenager behavior.

Luke 13:49-52. "I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled."
Okay, wait right here. You came to do a job and you wish someone had already done it for you?
"I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how I am constrained until it is accomplished! Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? NO, I tell you, but rather division; for henceforth in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against her mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law."
So apparently we can forget that whole "Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men" thing?

Luke 14:26 (MY FAVORITE) "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple."
I heard a phenomenal sermon on this text at Grace Episcopal, my church in NYC, early my first year. It was largely that sermon that made me stay at that church. And I've thought a lot about this scripture and can finally make some peace of it. But it's taken a while.
(I put this into a collage text in one of my classes this past semester. Another group had to stage the text, and for this particular bit, it was like someone was trying to get really into religion following a breakup, then heard this and promptly decided, "No way." I laughed loudly and obnoxiously.)

This is tough stuff and I absolutely love chewing on it. I'm so interested in what seperates each Gospel, and the bigger picture we get from all of them together. (I know, Rhonda, I know - seminary!) Last night I was reading my daily chapter of Luke, and I read the parable of the prodigal son, and I laughed and said, "Of course. Of COURSE the Prodigal Son is in Luke." (I've always had issues with that parable because of how the faithful son is treated. I just read a play version of that by Garrison Keeler, actually, while scouting for 3rd Year Directing Projects. It ends with a very bitter faithful son.)

I'm working tech for a concert here tonight. This is slightly nervewracking because I'm the only crew member working and concerts are much more sound heavy, especially on equalization and levels. (Also, if one more guitar player adjusts his cables when the mics or on... ::shakes fist:: It makes a wonderfully loud fireworks noice.) But I'm sure it'll be fine.