It's Been Awhile...

And really I don't have time to write much tonight, since I have to get to
bed so that I can wake up for NDVision morning prayer. Today, and the last
couple, have been really good. No lie, there have been some rough
patches--finding out that I can't go into the men's dorms/leave campus/ drink/
leave campus while the kids are here, putting up with people's kaleidescopic
emotions, rehearsing all the time and still not being able to get
everything in, the need that everyone feels to clap or snap to every song
they hear--but overall, the experience has been amazing, and we're only on
day three of our first week with campers.

Had a Reconciliation service tonight, and I got to sing "Shelter Your Name," which is the real Cadillac of solos. It was awesome. Today, we saw a couple of speakers and some stiudent presentations, and presented "The Prodigal Son." Tomorrow is more speakers and "The Good Samaritan," and then my musical ("The Parable of the Talents") is on Thursday.

Since I really do need to get some rest, I'll leave you some reflections that hit me during Days 1-3 of God Camp, aka NDVision2006:

"As when bread becomes his body

we become the living sign--

With God's love change the world

with your life."

~Danielle Rose, "Be God's"

This image is awesome: the bread becomes Body, and after consuming it our bodies because His bread for the world, to nourish the Body of Christ.

• Faith is as much a craft as carpentry or foundry: the inspiration is ever present, and can be found in any number of people, but one must seek and find the tools to make the vision of faith a practicable reality, and to draw others to its beauty.
• A good disciple has passion: Christ had both a passion and a Passion--the two are inextricably connected: joy and pain are inseperable because to experience intense love and joy with one's entire being is to experience the pain of needing to release it into the world. Happiness is fleeting, but joy--and the pain that comes with it--is the bedrock on which to build a life of faith.

"My birthright and my inheritance [as a baptized Catholic] is to be successful in one way, shape or form...in knowing who I am...and what I stand for... The Gospel is my prop to stand for what I believe... Stand up, with God as your anchor and Christ as your guide."

~Chandra Johnson. Pretty self explanatory.

• In a strange but compelling combination, Foreigner's "I Wanna Know What Love Is" was paired with the Passion scene from "Jesus of Nazareth." It was amazing. It highlighted the fact that true, unconditional and indiscriminate Love does not avoid or wait for its cross, but stumbles toward it with open arms, rests against it as Love bleeds. What other gift is like that of Christ's life and love for us? Given freely, gladly, joyously yet at such incredible cost to the giver. Christ died in agony, not that we might love Him, but that we might let Him love us as we were made to be loved.

Song of the moment: What Wondrous Love is This. Like it would be anything else.

P.S. Sorry about the strange formatting. I'll figure that out later.