I have now been home in California since the 9th, and tomorrow I leave for Texas to go back to school. It's been so strange to not have a schedule to adhere to, and my days have been filled with reading and The Office. I figure I should probably recap the last bit of my internship, for those of you who were wondering what happened to me.
The very last week was my week on the mountain. This means that along with Zach and the mountain intern Stephen, I hiked up Mt. Bard with the week's youth group, which happened to be from Katy, TX. From Monday until Thursday I had an introduction to God's love that the youth groups had been getting all summer. I loved the fireside devos where Zach talked about Jesus' radical love. I also loved battling gravity with the 17 people from the youth group as we ascended into thinner air and breathtaking views of God's creation. At the top of a mountain, it's peaceful and almost sacred. Nature offers a "cathedral hush" more holy than the stale air that circulates within the walls of any manmade edifice. At summit, Zach talked to the group about how we may want to stay out here. "Hey, it'd be great to just live in the mountains away from everyone." Well, that contradicts everything we had been talking about that week, and also everything I had been learning this summer. God made us to be with people. We're supposed to be in messes. We're supposed to be alongside our own kind. We're supposed to be in relationship.
Every night before I went to bed for the past ten weeks, I thought about what I was thankful for that day and wrote them down in a small leather journal. Looking back on what I wrote, I see a theme: the Holy Spirit, friends, and relationships were the most common entries. I have had many, many relationships this summer: with my co-interns, with the staff, with the street kids, with the youth groups, with the woman who let me live in her home. I've learned the importance of being friends with people and not judging them (although, it's not something that's perfected overnight - of course I am always going to struggle with not judging people). I've learned that it takes time to get to know someone. I've learned that you can get to know someone whose lifestyle is completely different than your own. And you can be friends with them. Walking through life together - this is what Dry Bones has taught me. Walk with someone - not as their mentor or guide, but as their ally - and no matter what messes you get into together or because of each other, you are living how God made us to live. I think that's why He wants to be friends with us, too.
I may feel like lounging around in this...
... but my heart lies with the likes of these.
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