Freedom's Risk

High school retreat has a tradition of snowing on us the day that we leave, and Sunday morning holds true.

The deer are huddled away this morning, so we are each alone as we crunch our way through the early morning dimness, bringing down kettles for tea, looking for a bathroom that doesn't shriek when you turn on the light, the way that the one in our cabin does. Slowly congregating at these long cafeteria tables to read and pray.

Saturday, we fumble around for matches and firewood. They hand us a torch instead, knowing better than we do that the wood is icy and frozen. That fire might not come as easily as we like.

Sunday, we follow trails of footprints into the warmth, where we read and talk and pray, using words like 'popcorn' and 'shower' to pin down the ways that we are going to connect with the Divine, not because they make God better able to hear us. But, because the long tails of a Western European faith tradition lean towards order and turn taking.

"I like prayer showers." One of the girls shrugs, referring to the way that we pray on Wednesday nights, voices tumbling over each other in ripples and rhythms of connection, but holding space when one of the boys expresses discomfort. Combining the two.

'Order' and then 'chaos.' Questions that don't always have answers. Or, answers that aren't the ones that we are expecting. Risk and freedom, courage and fear all muddled up together.

Because, this weekend, this is how we do.

We tease out the frayed edges, and we do the slow work of mending this thing back together. We line up the stories, the markers, the memorial stones of Faithfulness in the midst of mess, and we hold space for brokenness. For still trying to figure this thing out.

Sometimes it is passing conversations about Hebrew verbs or breakouts where my girls come back with the phrase, "nobody in the Bible was having fun," and it's church speak for phrases that we probably aren't supposed to use with the kids.

There are hundreds of more and less acceptable ways of saying it, and we try out a dozen of them. Acknowledge that life sometimes hurts. Often hurts. That sometimes freedom seems harder than slavery. That plagues are no fun, the walls of the Red Sea can be terrifying, and the wilderness can look empty.

"...looked like the world was falling apart..."
"...hot mess..."
"...sucks..."

That, on the other side, lies the Promised Land.

"You live by, every day, meeting with [God]."

We pile into minivans and suburbans and caravan our way to camp, my seats filled with freshmen who sing along loud to obnoxious songs and a few good ones, who rock the car back and forth and search up old videos to watch their tiny selves dance and giggle and shriek down snowy hills at an octave that only 6th grade boys are capable of reaching.

And, it's all so very, very this group of kids.

From the crowd surfing and dance party that are carefully sectioned off in Saturday night's schedule, to free time basketball and hours spent breaking chunks of ice off of the lake. Breakouts where we talk about suffering and sovereignty and why on earth these ten plagues. Early mornings to pray. Candy canes and wasabi peas. Patterns and repetitions.

Kids who circle up into these groups to pray, and the leaders who step back to talk about the things that we see God doing in their lives. Goofy skits and communion in dixie cups that are growing soft with holding grape juice.

Borrowed gloves and more girls than beds, but making it work anyways.

A soccer ball that connects with a head and a shoulder that manages to take the skin off a nose. Dozens of rocks thrown onto the ice and warm sunlight during free time. Lamps catapulted from beach towels and tables smashed until they fit through a toilet seat.

There is Grace here.

Grace for exploring on the other side of barbed wire fences and jumping into half frozen lakes, even after you have been told not to. For the kids who are with us every week and the ones who are just trying it out. For hikes and prayer, morning devos, and large group games. And, for missing the exit and coming the long way home.

Old habits in Haiti leaders who ask for ibuprofen or bandaids when their boys are sore or bleeding from playing too hard. In kids who laughingly tell their cabin mates that "mom" has extra shoelaces if they need them. In Happy Day hoe downs and quieter songs where hands and hearts learn a little more of what it means to move in surrender. In the ones who want to ask a thousand questions until this crazy, mystery of a thing begins to make sense and the ones who simply want to pull in as close to a leader as they can find an excuse for, until the knots on their insides begin to settle. And, the ones who somehow manage both.

Because, we know these stories.

Not just this Exodus story with its epic sweep and constant echoes. But, these smaller stories. The way that Haiti and John Day and clusters and teaching smaller kids all tie together into this knot of a high school youth group. The way that glass vases shatter when you hit them with a bowling ball. The echoes of our voices in a room that is big enough to swallow us whole, and the smell of maple bars on Sunday morning.

We know how to climb up onto top bunks for cabin time and where to stack the chairs when we are done with them. Know to bring hand towels and soap, but still haven't quite figured out how to keep from muddying the cabin floor with fifteen pairs of shoes or fumble around in the dark without knocking over ever present mugs and water bottles.

It is dark when I leave the cabin in the morning, dark when we finally settle into bed at night. Long hours of daylight and darkness that we fill up in between. The way that God's people always have. Following fire by night and cloud by day. Staying close. Forgetting the miracles almost as soon as they come. But, writing them down.

So that we don't forget.

In the end, the muddy footprints don't matter. In the end, it is Holy. The garbage that I find tucked into nooks and crannies of the minivan and the tarps full of intentionally broken glass. The lives that we have smashed together in a weekend of the sort of community that might be more "real life" than the "real life" that we say we're reentering. It's one of those retreats that's going to take a little coming back from. A beginning, a pause, a repetition, not a full story in it's own right.

The heater blasting in the background while we sing song after song on Saturday night, keeping the room warm while slush turns back to ice outside, even though my mental picture is a sunrise rooftop on the equator.

Carrying chairs down from the rooms where my high school youth group once held a winter retreat, played these same games, sat at these same tables, felt this tangible sense of the Holy.

A car ride home where we twine together Haiti and Royal Family, middle school ministry, elementary Sunday school, and a hundred thousand moments that have brought us here. Hours of dress up tent and swimming holes. Broken shower heads and ninjas through the church. Tap tap rides and familiar Sunday School rooms.

"...and God saw the children of Israel, and God knew."

We didn't start these stories this weekend, and we certainly didn't finish them here. There is messy work left to be done. But...

God is faithful. Freedom is possible. And, Christ is our reward.