Clap your hands all peoples, shout to God your praises!

I am currently suffering from OCS: Overflowing Cup Syndrome.

I walked into the lobby of the Aud Thursday to encounter a woodwind quartet playing Vivaldi's "Laudamus Te". Then I went into the Aud itself, and discovered that they'd mounted fabric coming from the ceiling and stretching to the stage. It was the conference's "ascension" day. I agree that fabric arching down towards something definitely signifies ascension... because after all, I used that same image in Tongues.

I love this conference. I really do. And because of strange circumstances of this week and my shifts, I've been able to take communion at every service this week... and will tomorrow, as well. Gorgeous. (And Sunday, I'll be SERVING communion, at the Montreat Sunday morning worship service. Oh my goodness.)

Here's what my days are like. I wake up, generally rather early, usually before my alarm clock. I got down to the banks of Lake Susan to do yoga, meditate, read the Bible. If I have the morning shift, I'll work worship... if I have the evening shift, I'll work the evening event or concert. When it's not either of those, I'm checking systems in the out buildings, and sitting in the booth babysitting mics. Which means... I get to sit in the booth, listening to choirs rehearse. When I'm not working, I'm outside in my hammock, listening to choirs rehearse. Or at various places around Montreat, playing the musical saw, which people at Worship and Music really appreciate.

A choral rehearsal room is probably where I feel the most comfortable in the world. I've been singing in choirs ever since I can remember, and have done many, many music weeks like these. Kalidescope's 4 times (?), Montreat's twice, Lake Junaluska's 8 times, sometimes in multiple choirs in one week... tons of music weekends like Richmond's Youth Choir Jam, District Chorus, the AGO Children's Choir Festival, etc. It is not unusual to find me popping into various choirs at Bon Air whenever I'm home (once I'd never even sung the song before...). Since my parents are both choir directors, being in choir was never really "optional". I get choral singing. There are rules to it that I understand and have lived my entire life, and it's shaped my voice. (I have a voice that BLENDS. I'm a more successful choral singer than soloist, by far.)

I miss it. I sang in a choir my first semester of college, but since then I have not been consistantly singing in a choir. While lovely people at my church in New York have been trying to recruit me for their parish choir (the one that's not paid) for a year and a half, it's rather difficult with rehearsal schedules to be able to commit to that. During these weeks, I miss it more than anything. The feeling of being one voice in many that make one again. Knowing that you are a vital part of that voice. Soaring beyond what you are physically capable of because you are not just yourself. Stepping back and letting your body and voice respond to the director before your mind does. The "are we going to pull it off?" thrill. Most of all, lifting up your voice to praise in such a heightened, precise way because nothing else does what you're singing to any justice whatsoever. The Senior High Choir sang Rutter's "I Will Sing With The Spirit" in worship, and I was tempted to go up and join them. Just stand in the back row and sing. I doubt the director would've noticed, and Lord knows I KNOW that anthem.

Even as early as the first full day of Worship and Music, the air was buzzing with familiarity. That morning while I was meditating, I started meditating on a choral "Alleluia" (a tune more commonly known as "When Jesus Wept"), much like meditating on a mantra. Shortly after I walked into the AV Booth today, the choir was singing a setting of "When Jesus Wept" with that tune. Later I worked the open mic in the barn, and the first group was a choir who got up and sang a setting of the Irish Blessing to their seniors, and then stayed up and sang the anthem "River in Judea". When we were checking all the inputs for that open mic, I pulled out my iPod and selected Rutter's Gloria. No one would ever put that on for an iPod check but me, but I did it for the choir directors. Sure enough, I heard someone, after I'd stopped the song, sing out, "Gloria in excelsis deo!" explaining to her friend how the piece booms. When it was time to kick the dancing children out of the Barn, we first started playing "MMMBop" (to which some smaller kids said, "What's this?" We were APPAULED), and then I sealed it with the Rutter "The Lord Bless You and Keep You".

(It's a very John Rutter conference.)

I've found the conference almost hilariously familiar in another way, too--the presence of the theatrical. Yesterday, I worked a class that was basically a tech rehearsal for this morning's scripture reading, with the biblical storyteller I mentioned a couple entries ago. I sat there, watching her, occasionally setting up other mics, occasionally being used as a sound designer/vocal coach even though she had no idea that that's my theatrical LIFE (do I have Voice and Speech written on my face or something?), and I thought, "I'm in a theatrical rehearsal room right now. I'm watching a director work." Which is strange, because it's been so long since I was inunduated with such rehearsal rooms. Part of my brain woke up briefly from its well-deserved nap.

The culmination of all of it has been worship. I managed to go to every worship this week, and take communion at each one. What pure joy! These services have been so full of life, liturgy, and celebration, I've been astounded. I have to admit that I've cried at nearly every service. You have to understand--almost everyone in that huge auditorium this week are singers--hymnsinging is like singing in a giant choir. Monday morning, when we stood to sing the first hymn, an Easter hymn... I lost it. Because, once again, I was part of this whole. This vocal whole, all these voices being raised in beautiful accord to that which is greater than all of our voices combined. And, this is the dorkiest thing, but at the end of one verse, we all aspirated the [t], together, and I was just floored, not because of the feat of such a unison [t], but the fact that I was here, singing with people who understand the joy and expression of something as dorky as a precise, aspirated [t] sound.

The past couple of days I've had a hard time finding a seat, so I've asserted the fact that I'm staff and sat at the creekside spotlight, which is a raised platform at the back of the house left side of the Aud. And actually, it has the best view. Ever. You're close to everything but just slightly above so you can see it all. (The picture above was taken at the spot.) Several times, I've looked out and had to stop singing and take a moment to gape in awe and gratitude. They've been using banners, and dancers with fabric... and... well, first, that's just so theatrically effective in a huge space where people are standing. You can't see people running down the aisles, but you can't help but notice 12 foot banners waving like tongues of fire above you. And being able to watch the people waving the banners--I will never forget this one woman's face that was just filled with joy. Looking over the auditorium, I lose my voice, because all of this heightened expression, this liturgy, this extreme-voice-use-that-we-call-singing, all of us it reaching for means of praise. Speaking is not enough, so I will sing. Walking is not enough, so I will dance. My body can't hold it, so I'll wave a 12-foot art piece over you so we might get slightly closer to praising as much as is deserved. (And I will point out: I have been more emotional during these worship services than most I've ever been in, and these worship services are built on liturgy and ritual, not "let-me-be-a-super-emotional-guitar-player" praise songs. There's nothing wrong with them (I'm not a huge fan, but some people are), I'm just saying that there is TREMENDOUSLY HUGE VALUE IN THE RITUAL and if we don't see that we're idiots--that the problem is not that "ritual is outdated, we need to be more hip", it's that "something has disconnected in the spiritual life of this congregation". Painting a house does not fix the rotten wood.)

At the end of worship on Thursday, I experienced something I never thought I would see: Presbyterians dancing in the aisles. After a slightly rambunctious final hymn, the congregation say down polietely for the postlude, as they do. But the postlude, with organ and a small group of instruments, was such that people started clapping rhythms, and soon the entire congregation was on their feet, people were throwing their hands into the air and dancing, the preacher was on stage going in circles... none of this in a "charismatic Christianity possessed and speaking in tongues" way that occasionally resembles a cult (Presbyterians stay far away from that, as a general rule), but because everyone was just so excited that we all had to let it out, and the postlude became a congregational jam session/dance party.

I recently read the book Eat, Pray, Love, and one of the conversations in that book centered around the idea of each person and each place having a word that runs underneath them and motivates everything, that is the breath and heartbeat. In the book, they spectulate that Rome's word is "sex", Naples' word is "fight", and New York's word is "achieve". Which of course got me wondering, "Hmm, what would my word be?" I (uncharacteristically) didn't obsess over that. But during this conference, I think it's become clear. It's the thing that stirs in me whenever I think of Bernstein's MASS, or really any other theater piece I feel inexplicably drawn to. It's my secret motivation. It's the word I was hinting at in every single class presentation I did about Tongues. It's sometimes an unpopular word. It's not "joy", it's not "understanding", it's not even "love".

It's "praise".

Not in the sense of, "I'm always trying to earn praises!", but "I'm always trying to sing praises." To God, specifically, which also means to the entirety of creation. And if I gain praise, I love to reflect it back. I remember after the (highly successful and praised) workshop of Tongues, being so happy because it was like I was a mirror pointed upward, where people would say things to me that I had the joy of bouncing up to God. Praise the beauty. Praise the majesty. Praise the wonder. Praise the humor. Praise the sacrifice. Praise the love. Praise, praise, praise, praise, praise. If I had nothing in my life but the ability to praise without ceasing, I'd be the richest person alive.

This conference is so full of people with praise on the tips of their tongues and fingertips, just longing to release it, and when they do, it swirls into a pillar, reaching up to kiss the heavens in love.

I am lucky because I get to be a part of it. People don't know, but I do. Actively. I sneak in. I miss being in a choir... but tonight and last night, I worked the concerts. The Adult choirs sit in the back of the Auditorium, and the director stands on a platform that faces the booth to conduct them. Really, in the booth, we're looming above the adult choir. And for both concerts, they've had soloists at mics, but also loud choirs and the organ that could very easily be picked up by the mic when the soloist isn't there. So instead of turning on the mic for the entire song, I stand at the board with one hand on the fader and one hand on the gain nob, with more attention in my body than I've had in years, watching intently for the soloists to step up to the mic or for the director to gesture to the soloist, and once that signal happens, I madly adjust the mic settings. And then I'll watch the director as fiercely as the most intense choir member in case she wants a different mix. I don't know if she'd think to look up if something were too loud or too soft, but I stand there just in case she, for some reason, signals a volume change to me like she does to the singers below. Once I see her arms expand to bring in the rest of the choir, the quick board adjustments happen again. No one knows that I'm doing it, not even my boss. The choir director won't know, but I have joined the choir, because there are many ways of singing praises. I can even do it with an Allen and Heath sound board, making sure the voices are heard in crisp, clean balance.

Between my love and my heart things were happening....

I have many words, but they fly into the air. Much good is happening, and I will blatantly steal a story used in today's sermon to post here to try to describe what's going on. (Today's sermon introduced me to the "Desert Fathers" of early Christianity. It's like everything I love from Christianity and everything I love from Sufism, together.)

Mother. Don't read further unless you want Wednesday's sermon ruined.

Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, ‘Abba as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?’ then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, ‘If you will, you can become all flame.’

Sing ye joyfully unto the Lord!

Reasons I LOVE Worship and Music Conferences:

• Today, we tested all the assisted listening devices. They asked me to talk into the pulpit mic for an extended period of time because I occasionally recite show tunes for mic checks, which is makes the mic check a more enjoyable experience. (One of my upper-level bosses actually remembered this about me from last summer, that I did "I Am The Very Model of a Modern Major General" for a candlelight check. I told her that I can do the periodic table of the elements to that tune, and she requested that for candlelight that I worked this past Friday.) Today I did "Trouble" from The Music Man. And then the organist applauded me and told me he almost joined in on the chorus. And then sang the tenor line.
• The Opening Voluntary was the Widor Toccata, aka my favorite organ piece ever that I'm obsessed with and posted on this blog after Tongues opened. When he started playing it, I squealed. Literally. In the booth. And then jammed. Physically. And got very strange looks from my fellow crew members... as I am the only one who loves organ music. (Also... with the new subwoofers we have... WOAH. Eric commented that he was afraid that we were going to fall through the floor, the booth was shaking so much.)
• I heard the organist practicing the Widor Toccata while I was hammocking. Thus... I was in a hammock, listening to the Widor Toccata. I don't know if life gets any better.
• The paraments are GORGEOUS.
• There's a workshop called "Sacred Space and the Tactile Senses".
• There's a woman here doing dramatic interpretations/memorized readings of the scriptures, much along the lines of what my mother and I worked to do at Bon Air a couple summers ago. She saw me, complimented my hat, and then said, "You're a theater person, aren't you?" When I nodded, she said, "We can spot each other a mile away." Later, as her husband was looking for AV Crew, she said, "Here, come talk to Hilary and Colleen with the theater hat!"
• It's a dance year, so there are liturgical dancers everywhere. Rarely have I ever talked about my relationship to liturgical dance. I mentioned it briefly in the blog last summer. It's a huge part of me, my relationship with God, the path I'm on now in my spiritual life, how I've developed as a person. I don't know many others with the same kind of relationship I have to dance... I know many people who were in dance classes since they were little and that has shaped them and their lives in beautiful and particular ways... but I will rarely even talk about dance with them because our experiences are the MOST different as to what dance even IS. Neither experience is better or worse, they're just different. Opposite, even. So I don't claim to be "a dancer" in the same way as people who were taking ballet when they were 4 do, because I'm not, and try to get me to do the same technique and learn the same choreography and that will become obvious. But there is a very sacred and intimate place where I am a dancer. In the way that I've danced in church, in the way that I'd leap around in the field by the playground in my neighborhood when I was in elementary school, in the way that I'd spend hours upon hours dancing when my parents were off at choir rehearsal... and in a way that no one has ever seen me dance, act, or behave at PHTS. It is significant to me that my first dance teacher, who I had a huge group class with for a few days at Lake Junaluska when I was 10 and did not see, did not hear from, did not contact (why would I anyway?), saw me 8 years later and didn't recognize me physically (duh, 10 to 18 is a major period of physical change), but saw me walking and said to herself, "I know her. She knows what I'm talking about. She's got what I got." By the end of that week, she nicknamed me her Jr. (and she is actually a secret reason I'm going to Ghana). It is also significant to me that her philosophy on dance is nearly identical to PHTS' philosophy on teaching. Watching these dancers bring the messages to bodily life is very moving.
• This is the most beautiful congregational singing you will ever hear, because it's a congregation of almost entirely singers.
• The liturgy and integration of music into the service is incredible. Art, as well. BANNERS. Oh my goodness the banners flying over the congregation in baptismal remembrance today!
• I LOVE sacred choral music. I was brought up on it. I took a sneak peak at the upcoming worship services, there are choral refrains I know and love, anthems I've sung, and always new things to be introduced. I was a Worship and Music conferee. This is MY language. This is what I was fed as a small child, running around the church, playing underneath the pews as the choir practiced. Most of summer staff, their language is Youth conferences. They're used to energizers and praise songs. I was born into a world of doxologies and John Rutter.

But reason number one that I love THIS particular Worship and Music conference? The theme is about Living the Sacramental life. Which means....

THEY ARE CELEBRATING COMMUNION EVERY DAY.

I REPEAT.

EVERY DAY.

BREAD AND WINE (well, grape juice) AND LITURGY AND THE INCREDIBLE BEAUTIFUL SACRAMENT THAT I POSTED MY LOVE FOR IN A BLOG POST THAT MY PARENTS KEEP QUOTING...

EVERY.

DAY.

OF.

THE.

CONFERENCE.

I work mornings (which is when their worship is) twice a week. They don't send communion up to the booth, so I won't get to take communion on those mornings. But I KNOW I'll be able to take communion at least THREE DAYS OF THE WEEK. FOR TWO WEEKS. And depending on what I'm working next Sunday, I may get to attend that service and take communion AGAIN.

SIX OR SEVEN COMMUNIONS IN THE SPAN OF TWO WEEKS.

I HAVE NEVER USED THIS MUCH CAPSLOCK IN MY LIFE.

I LOVE YOU WORSHIP AND MUSIC!

All shall become clear.

Tonight, I got paid to watch the movie Evan Almighty.

(Well, actually, I got paid to haul the GIANT sound system out to the Barn and back to the Aud because both of our actual portable systems are broken. This system is heavier than the "unportable portable". We call it "The Beast".)

But also, I got paid to stay there and babysit said system and watch the movie.

Evan Almighty is not a groundbreaking work of cinema. It is also not a groundbreaking theological work. However, I enjoyed it thoroughly (biblical humor! Bible inside jokes! I love them! Also Morgan Freeman is the perfect actor to play God), and found its theology rather sound.

For those of you who don't know Evan Almighty, the premise of the movie is that God is calling Evan, newly-elected and rather agnostic (or maybe passive Christian) congressman to build an ark. I won't go into the reasons why, but a lot of the humor, especially at the beginning, revolves around God giving very obvious, persistant signs; repeated references to Genesis 6:14, animals in two beginning to follow Evan around, wood from "Go-4-Wood" being delivered randomly to Evan's house, etc. One might almost wonder HOW Evan could doubt that this was indeed a calling from God, with such exaggerated signs. But I don't think Evan doubts it is God. I think that Evan, like most of us, is afraid of the responsibility that accepting that call entails, so he runs desperately and absurdly from this obvious calling.

I started to have that thought of, "Man, if only God DID speak that obviously! If only there were more burning bushes around, spelling things out for us! But there's that whole "mysterious ways" thing..."

And then I stopped and said, "Wait."

And I thought, "Actually, this is EXACTLY what my experience of a call from God has been. Persistant, unavoidable, absurd, humorous, and almost obnoxiously OBVIOUS."

Sometimes I think we convince ourselves that God is so sneaky and mysterious that we ignore the giant, glaring things he places right in front of our faces. When Jesus called the disciples, he did it by saying, "Come and follow me." And I don't think his methods have changed that much. I mean, don't get me wrong, God is the sneakiest. But, if you're looking for a sign, it very well may have been staring you in the face this entire time. And my experience has been that things that were once mysterious eventually become the most obvious things in the world.

Oh, mystery...

I've mentioned it before, but. Hammocks.

I've spent a lot of time lying in my hammock lately, and I have experienced the very strange sensation of contentment. It's actually quite weird to be somewhere or doing something and know that you don't want to be or need to be anywhere else, or doing anything else. It's much easier for us to be unhappy or restless--I would actually say that contentment is the hardest emotion for us to allow ourselves to have. We search for the rush of joy or the agony of conflict, as opposed to the peace of contentment which is so hard to find.

I know exactly why I am so content in my hammock, but that is a more intimate thing than I am prepared to discuss right now.

What I will say is that today, as I was lying in my hammock, I listened to Paul Winter's Missa Gaia. I have heard the Missa Gaia before, but I'd never sat down and listened to it attentively. And as I listened I heard a song that perfectly expressed what I was feeling in that moment. Rather miraculously and emotionally, it seemed to be my personal anthem.

The song is called "Mystery". You can listen to it here, and I'm posting the lyrics, because they have said what I have been trying to say for some time now.

It lives in the sea or a tree as it grows.

You can hear it, if you listen, to the wind as it blows.

It’s there in a river as it flows into the sea.

It’s the sound in the soul of someone becoming free

And it lives in the laughter of children at play

And in the blazing sun that gives light to the day.

It moves the planets and all the stars that shine.

It’s been the mover of mountains, since the beginning of time.

Oh Mystery you are alive; I feel you all around.

You are the fire in my heart; you are the holy sound,

You are all of life; it is to you that I sing.

Grant that I may feel you, always in everything.

And it lives in the waves as they crash upon the beach.

I have seen it in the gods that we have tried to reach.

I feel it in the light and I know it means so much.

I know it in your smile, my love, when our hearts do touch.

But when I listen deep inside, I feel best of all,

Like a moon that’s glowing white and I listen to your call

And I know you will carry me, I feel like the tide

Rushing through the ocean, and my heart is open wide.

Oh Mystery you are alive, I feel you all around.

You are the fire in my heart; you are the holy sound.

You are all of life; it is to you that I sing.

Grant that I may feel you, always in everything.

Oh Mystery...

We are not alone.

Tonight, worship was the "cloud of witnesses" service. I assume it's a theme every year, as they used Hebrews 12:1 last year, as well.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

At the pivotal moment of the service, they had about 8 youth come up to the microphone (wired 5, an SM58, for anyone who cares), holding (electronic) candles, and name a person and what that person had done for their faith beginning with "by faith". Like, "By faith, my mother read my scriptures," or "By faith, Caroline invited me to church." Then five people individually stood up in the house, holding up their candles and shouted out their own witnesses. And then more people started, overlapping and simultaneous (with some music fading in, compliments of yours truly), so there was a rush of sound, swirling up and clouding over. When the voices stopped, the music kept playing, suspending over the individual candlelights still raised high in the air. When the music ended, a creed began. The execution went very smoothly, and the moment was a truly beautiful moment of design.

I remember thinking about this last year during Alpha as the preacher recalled stories of that "one person" who'd affected a life in a way they'd never forget. And I remember thinking, then, that I have been lucky to have had so many of those people. Tonight, I wondered what I would say if I were one of the conferees with a candle. I started to write the different "By faith..." sentences that popped into my head down.

By the time I put the pen down, my vastly incomplete list had 88 sentences and mentioned over a hundred people.

Pastors, teachers, friends, family. People I haven't seen in years, people I saw today, people I've never seen but know well. Christians, yes, many Christians, but also atheists, Jews, Buddhists, UUs, people who are "spiritual but not religious", people who are confused as to their own religious path, people who don't know how to approach religion.

I have a very, very strong suspicion that is growing into a belief as I see it more clearly... and that is that we are all, secretly, looking for the same thing. Some find it in the Bible, some find it in the Koran, some find it in trees, some find it in history. I am falling so much in love with it, I burn to find it in everything. All I ever do is listen for its voice. This summer, I have two nicknames here: "Art School", which has stuck from last year, and the new one, "Buddhist Monk". (Occasionally "Buddhist Nun".) I'll say something, and usually Russ will say, "You're SUCH a Buddhist Monk," and I'll say, "But, look, that's what Jesus is saying!" (I think I'm more Sufi or Sikh than Buddhist.) The way IS narrow. It's difficult. But it's not "exclusive". Anything we label as exclusive is the sin we so often commit: the sin of limiting God. How can we say "God is not __________" without stripping him of his Godliness?

I don't know what this race is, but I am not meant to know. Just enough is revealed so I can know where to land the next step. Someone asked me what I wanted to do today. It took me a moment to realize that they meant my "career interests". What do I want to do? I want to follow God. Oh, I have plans on "how to survive after graduating college", which include that I think I am currently meant to be doing as far as a "job" or "career" or whatever. Not having those is not good stewardship. But those will land me somewhere else. And those somewhere else. If I try to store manna from today, it will simply go bad tomorrow. Let go of that attachment. Remember God. I don't know where this race goes (though I think I have a vision of the end). But I can place my next step because of the hundreds of voices that have whispered the direction. I bow in reverence and gratitude to all of you.

Tonight, I rode back to my house in the back of my friend's truck. I listened, and I think the mountains were singing.

Tonight, I GOTTA cut loose!

Tonight is Thursday of Youth Conference Week One.

That means... tonight is the first AV/Aud Olympics.

We filmed the video yesterday. The video involved West Side Story, Rachel and I taking the unportable portable into the men's bathroom, and a neon green body sock.

While waiting to get into dinner at Assembly, I saw a small girl on the computer in the lobby. She was enthusiastically Google-searching Sweeney Todd. A few minutes into her search, she found an article analyzing the musical... an article I know very well, as it was the first article I found when I started Google-searching Sweeney Todd back when I was twelve. (I printed that article, highlighted it, underlined it, wrote notes in the margins, and it currently lives in my five pound Sweeney Todd binder. I wanted to say something to her, but I thought that might be a little creepy. (I did, however, mention to the people I was there with that one of the only songs I can play on the piano is the accompaniment to "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd", as it came up in conversation. She turned at that.) It was a slightly surreal and lovely moment of my life.

Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere.

Three things.

No, four.

Or-- three things with a special guest.

Today was an absolutely beautiful day.

Church this morning, and as it is the first Sunday of the month, it was communion Sunday. I have recently started finding great joy in communion. It is the strangest ritual of the Christian church, and the most mythic and mystical. Theories on what takes place during communion abound, with various scientific sounding words to try to describe it, and I think there are only so many attempts to put words to it because we know what it means somewhere past where language has hold. We know the communal significance of a shared meal. (ESPECIALLY Baptists. Baptists have more potlucks than any other denomination would know what to do with.) We know the vitality of food. We know the significance of the bread of life, we know that the first miracle was Christ turning water into wine, we know the moment in which the Last Supper took place, we even know the significance of the ritual act of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ. It's the creepiest part of Christianity, to be sure, but it is the entire religion. The act of eating and drinking is the closest we can get to basic survival. The only thing closer to life and death is breath. We breathe, we eat. That is what it is to be alive at the basic level. Communion means that our lifeforce, our fuel, IS Christ, and that's what Christianity is. Born of God the Father, breathing God the Spirit, sustained by God the Son.

I have often lamented that Protestants don't get sensual ritual. Not like Catholics, and certainly not like other religions. But, we have communion. I have often read accounts of saints on their deathbeds, desperate for the sacrament of communion. Even our good friend John Calvin was intense about communion and insisted on its reformation in the church. (He went so far as to blame spiritual immaturity and evil deeds in churchfolk on lack of communion.) I remember from a lecture last summer that Calvin's views on how often communion should be taken were sometimes challenged by the claim that the sacrament would lose its significance if performed too often. I cannot find the quote, but Calvin rebutted by agreeing, saying that it should be limited to no more than once per day. Very recently, I have started to understand and share in this love for communion found throughout church history. It is a beautiful, confusing, and visceral moment.

Most conferences have a communion service during their week at Montreat. The shared-meal aspect of it is particularly unifying in a group that's only together for a week. One of the things I particularly love about youth conferences is that the planning teams for these conferences are generally very aware of including those of us in the booth. I was quite startled when, working Alpha Week One last year, the co-directors of the conference appeared at the booth, during the communion, with bread and a chalice, to serve us communion. It is a strange thing to take communion with a headset on, but is somehow fitting and right, as that headset is a part of our work, which is God's work; which is service. I hope to attend many communion services this summer. After all, John Wesley called missing communion when it's available a "sin of infirmity".

After church, a sound check, and a trip to Blingles (Black Mountain Ingles... as opposed to Swingles: Swananoa Ingles, Ashingles: Asheville Ingles, or Headqwingles: Ingles Headquarters... all summer staff nicknames), Rachel and I settled in for some quality hammock time before work this evening.

Hammocks were always "the expensive outdoor lounge item that they owned next door but we would never own", until I came to Montreat last year and discovered that nearly everyone had a hammock... the kind you kept in a bag, affixed to trees temporarily with straps, and took on hiking trips. So, when I found a hammock on sale online earlier this year, I bought it. I have a spot in the shade by the Aud that is my hammock real estate, which is where I spent a good part of this afternoon.

There is something to be said for meditating in a hammock, particularly on an exceptionally breezy or slightly windy day.

Since last year's Pentecost, I have been obsessed with the wind as the breath of God. That was my first Sunday at Montreat and as Pete preached about Ezekiel prophesying to the breath in the valley of dry bones, the wind gushed through the windows of the Aud, and the wooden doors to the lobby started flying open and slamming shut as that breath filled the room. It was incredible. The weather here has a personality, a definite sense of humor, and I have long thought of extreme weather that mucks with our human plans as God reminding us of who is in control.

Lying in a hammock is like lying in the water - you're suspended, and your whole body is able to feel the wind. A breeze flies under you, over you, all around you at once. It rocks you, it cradles you. Being grounded to the earth is lovely, but we spend most of our time on the earth. It has been in the water and in the air that I have most had the sensation of being cradled in God's arms.

After two hours in the hammock, Rachel and I (got food and then) worked the opening of the first week of Youth Conferences. There are six weeks of Youth Conferences. Each week brings in a different batch of youth from around the US (and Canada!), and every two weeks of this, there's a new planning team. So, for Weeks One and Two, the conferences are run by the planning team known as "Alpha". Three and Four are "Theta", and Five and Six are, yes, "Omega". So hundreds of enthusiastic youth are now prowling Montreat Conference Center, eating ice cream at the Huck, and playing a lot of frisbee. Presbyterians tend to lament the state of their denomination. Heard it in church today: how membership has been dropping for years and people are wondering if it will hold up much longer. But these youth, man. They are ENERGY for the church. Before morning keynote and evening worship, they gather at the doors (I've seen groups wait for over an hour), waiting until the doors are opened so they can rush in and grab their pews. And, of course, there are the energizers; the choreographed dances to popular and/or Christian music that EVERYONE KNOWS. It's one of the most cultish things I've seen, besides the Calvin masks (I say that with the MOST love). Since I was not a Presbyterian Youth, I encountered energizers for the first time last summer. And I'm telling you: EVERYONE knows them. The Recreation Leaders "teach" them, but everyone knows them except for interlopers like me. And EVERYONE participates. There's no "sulky 16 year old in the corner saything, 'This is dumb.'" No. EVERYONE participates. Even the moderator of the Presbyterian church. People who wouldn't be caught dead doing anything remotely resembling an energizer outside the gates of Montreat are jumping and dancing and screaming their heads off. And some of these energizers are painful. "Istanbul" involves lots of jumping and kicking your legs out, which is all well and good until you do it in pews where you inevitably hit your shins. And yet... EVERYONE DOES IT.

I went to a fair number of large, district retreats as a middle and high school youth group member. Eventually, though, they started leaving a sour taste in my mouth. I would go, have an emotional experience, then come back incredibly self-righteous, and in a week that emotional high would be gone and I wouldn't know how to function as a Christian anymore. The emotional experience (often a goal of such retreats) would make me think, "My life has been changed!" but actually, it did not, because it did not teach me how to live with the revelation I'd just had, so I'd find myself in the same place I'd started--or often worse, as I'd go on a judgmental "I'm living for JESUS!" streak for a week and hurt those around me. There are ways in which religious retreats like these can be terribly manipulative and, as someone I know pointed out, deny the existence of the holy in your life anywhere BUT those emotional highs. One particular spiritual retreat/experience I flat out refused to participate in. I had friends pressuring me to go, church members offering to sponsor me, and I would have none of it. (That organization still scares me.)

My experiences with Montreat Youth Conferences, though, have been rather favorable. Through all three of the different preachers I experienced last year, I found there to be a groundedness and a commitment to helping the youth leave the mountain-top experience as healthy Christians. Last year, one of the preachers preached a phenomenal last-night-in-Montreat sermon about the dangers of being fired up without being humble. Right around that time, an usher at a church in Kansas, who was also an abortion doctor, had been shot in the narthex of his church--and that shooter was fired up without humility. It was such an important sermon. It is true--passion is important, but that passion must include deep, deep love for all around. That's what being a Christian is.

I pray for passion and humility in all these youth. Their energy is infectious--as we heard them gathering outside, the booth was all a-twitter with excitement. (And yes, we all posted on Twitter about it.) Rachel and I rocked the energizers in the booth. While I admit that I sometimes (maaaybe more than sometimes) did energizers in my dorm room, doing energizers alone is kind of like drinking alone. They did some awesome energizers tonight, too, including my three favorites: Istanbul, Revolution, and Numa Numa.

Imagine me doing this, while holding a headset pack, occasionally adjusting mic levels, and jumping with the most RIDICULOUS grin on my face. Pure idiotic-looking joy. :)

Communion.

Hammocks.

Youth conference.

And now, our special guest....

Straight from Isaiah Chapter 14...

...a hedgehog.

I was reading Isaiah, and I came across this particular passage. Talking about the downfall of the King of Babylon:

22. I will rise up against them, says the Lord of hosts, and will cut off from Babylon name and remnant, offspring and posterity, says the Lord.
23. And I will make it a possession of the hedgehog, and pools of water, and I will sweep it with the broom of destruction, says the Lord of hosts.

Never before have I encountered hedgehogs, in all my theological study. Broom of destruction... weird, but fine. Hedgehogs?

A bit of Google searching has led me to find out that they were important to ancient Zoroastrians. A site that I don't necessarily know if I trust said that one time the Zoroastrians surrendered to the Arabs on the condition that their pet hedgehogs would not be killed.

More Google searching revealed different versions of the passage that replaced "hedgehogs" with owls, herons, or porcupines.

My roommate brought out her study bible, which pointed to some other passages in Isaiah that seemed to say that the city would be overrun with animal infestations.

So a giant infestation of hedgehogs(/owls/porcupines/herons)?

(yes, I made that.)

I might need a life.