I spent the last week at Camp Kum Ba Ya in Benton, Kentucky. This was my last week of the summer at a church camp, and as I left that place, drove off of those grounds, I couldn’t help but think about closure. It was such an incredible blessing to open up my peace intern summer with four weeks of summer camp back to back to back to back. Getting to see how God moves and works in each space differently, in each camper differently, was a blessed reminder about God’s diverse presence in our lives. Getting to hear different perspectives on the scripture, different truths and stories spoken through each keynoter, each youth, each community reminded me of the way scripture meets us each where we are at, and it is okay for that meeting to be different for different people, and for different times in our lives. Getting to experience how fun and joy work differently in each camp through various games, nighttime activities, and sacred traditions reminded me that we are all tied together through our quest for joy, for happiness, for love despite being in different places, different contexts, with different stories. It was such a blessing to witness the ways God’s presence unites so many beautiful souls across the country, across our denomination, and how camp has served as a communal experience to show and guide God’s presence in our lives. That being said, leaving camp after those holy four weeks was difficult. But that time of closure allowed me a new experience, a new blessing: the transition to a new framework of peace and justice beyond the holy ground of camp.
This week reminded me of the personal power, the relational power, of justice work, a reminder which helped contextualize the taking of my work this summer beyond the context of camp. One camp tradition at Kum Ba Ya is writing warm fuzzies – small written affirmations – for those in the camp community. It is such a wonderful way to let those around me feel seen, feel known, feel loved, through the practice of affirmation. I decided to read my warm fuzzies once I arrived at my next destination, so as I was sitting in Harvard Avenue Christian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma awaiting the start of my Be The Neighbor week, I opened up the bag. I started reading them one by one and felt seen and known in an intricate way as I continued to get through the bag. There was one warm fuzzy however, that hit me in a different way, one warm fuzzy that stuck out to me in a particular, deep, soul moving way. As I read it, I felt the air in the room become different, my own energy become different. I truly felt the power of the work I have been doing this summer, of the relationships I have been building, of the vulnerable conversation I have been having, come to life. When I read it, it unlocked a deeper knowledge within myself of the power I have to bring about real change in the world, to bring the crowded table that God calls for closer and closer to the here and now.
The warm fuzzy read: “thank you for showing me that it is okay to be gay; it was the primary thing holding me back from religion.” Having such undeniable proof right before my eyes that my workshop, my words, my story had a life changing impact on someone brought me to tears. It has been truly difficult for me this summer to have the conversation of LGBTQIA+ inclusion each and every week with a new community, a new set of youth and adults, not knowing if they want to hear my story. Not knowing if they would look at me differently once they knew about my queerness. Not knowing if the narrative I brought to the table would lead to conflict and chaos aimed at me for bringing up a ‘difficult topic.’ Not knowing if the acceptance and love I had received at these camps before doing my workshop was actually conditional and could be lessened once the vulnerability of my true self was revealed.
Time and time again this summer those worries, those anxieties that I experienced before starting my workshop were proven so incredibly wrong. Time and time again I felt myself being welcomed on a deeper level once I told my story, my narrative of inclusion, love, and justice to these camps. And KBY was no different. But something about reading that warm fuzzy and knowing that my story of my own queerness and my journey to understanding that God’s love was undeniably for me made someone else feel seen, feel known, feel fully loved by God hit in a different way. Gaining the knowledge that my vulnerability about my identity and my struggle to find my place as a queer Christian gave light and truth to another young queer Christian’s struggle made me feel understood. Knowing that the narrative of inclusion and love that I wove through my workshop, the lens of the Genesis creation story I shared that shows that queer people are undeniably part of God’s good and beautiful image and undeniably a part of God’s community gave someone else a way to truly begin to see that their queerness was another reason why God loves them, not an element of their identity that separates them from God, made me feel like my story and my good news are necessary to share.
You never really know how your truth will impact someone else. You never can foresee the ways your vulnerability can make someone else feel seen. You never expect your good news to resonate deeply with those around you. And yet…
And yet your truth has power. Your story has the ability to build relationship, to make people feel seen, to be a catalyst of peace and justice. So, take up that space. Uplift voices that share good news of inclusion and justice. Create space in your own communities to foster vulnerability. Find ways in your own life that your story and the stories of those around you can become vehicles of change. Because if there is one thing I learned this week at Camp Kum Ba Ya, it was that God’s kindom, God’s ever-inclusive vision for a crowded table, cannot come to light if we aren’t willing to share our stories, share pieces of ourselves, to create connection, community, and change.
As I drove away from the holy ground that is Camp Kum Ba Ya, I felt re-invigorated, refreshed, and prepared to take God’s justice, God’s kindom, to the beautiful world that exists beyond camp. The stories, the connections, the relationships that I gained at each of my four camps gave me confidence to share my message of justice and inclusion with a greater community, empowered me to believe that my story of inclusion, that God’s story of a radically open table, deserves to be heard. God’s reminder through that warm fuzzy that my story is necessary, that my truth has power, and that sharing that narrative can create foundations of relational justice was the push I needed to start bringing my peace and justice work out of the walls of camp.
