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.