Oh dear. I wanted to get this off my chest, so its a MASS of ramblings. But I want to be able to look back on it in a years time and remember, so don't read if you're not interested :P
Soul Survivor! The adventure of the year, and yes, I did in fact survive. I have to admit that the presence of warm showers meant that my survival was much more cheerful than it could have been.
The coach was, as always, interesting, and very different. Much of it comprised of Jasper trying to organise Arcade Fire tickets, talks of weddings, and Stone Henge Sightings. The lack of tickets made Jasper antsy, the talk of Weddings involved first just three people, but grew to about six, and Stone Henge, for the life of me I don't know why, but I miss
every year. This year was different :) Unfortunately, my illusions have been shattered. Its really not that cool :/
Tents! Were the next job. I swear we had the biggest tent of our group, with only five of us. There were two bedrooms, a living space, a porch, windows, and a back door. I mean really, what more could you ask for?
Perhaps less wind? Putting up tents in wind gives a bit of the Mary-Poppins effect. It didn't help that despite there being four of us working on it, it never quite seemed to do as we told it to. But eventually it was up, sleeping quarters decided, roll mats rolled out, and two guitars in hand. Our tent - undoubtedly because of its size- became the communal area somewhat for our group. Doors wide open, guitars played...Though apparently the rules had changed and so this was not allowed. Easily remedied, guys sat in the porch :)
I loved that despite there being about eleven thousand people there, and us being as far away from the Big Top as was physically possible, that the next camp along was Lauras :). Which meant that at one point we had an afternoon of just me, her, and her friend Laura (Because that didnt get confusing...), just chatting. Which was lovely :) Its those kind of moments I treasure more I think. Like when Laura James and me just sat in our porch with the guitar. It was nice :) Just chilled out.
Laura being so close was in fact a blessing the first morning, seeing as our church managed to forget to bring Sugar. How am i supposed to drink coffee without sugar? :'(. Roseanna ended up very angrily forcing me to go find someone, because "I cant be friends with you without Caffine". Lol :) I ended up heading to Lauras camp to steal some, which really just put me in a bit of a silly mood for the rest of the day. It was nice :)
After a cold buffet it was time for the first service! I tried so hard to be excited about it. My solitude and lack of Ellie/Emmy/Bunting/Matt meant I was a bit more nervous about being stuck on my own than Jesus stuff to be honest. I assumed, as had happened over the last two years, I'd get into it as soon as the music played :)
Which I kind of didn't. It turns out over the last year, the generic "Happy lets be happy rivers flow God is the Eagle I am healed so lets dance dance", had irritated me. As awful as it sounds, instead of worshipping, I got a bit annoyed by the naff songs :/ The fight try to keep everyone together was annoying also, although it was awesome to be in a service again.
Resigning myself to the fact I was probably going to have to mooch my way through the week, I cant remember exactly what we did on each individual night. I think for the first two nights, we went to Tool Shed. I love toolshed :) I wish they'd kept it a bit more fresh, like the first year, where there was a whole range of everything. This year was very much, Gap Year, College, University. Which is cool, and I know who to talk to about it now, but there was less meaty stuff in there :) The books were also scarily expensive. I'd adore a certain book, but it was only about 100 pages, and was £8. Not cool :/
And for a while, it was a bit awkward for me. There was the point that I felt totally shattered, but would have to be sociable if I wanted the week to be okay. It wasn't till Katie said something in conversation that made me chill out, that it actually felt alot more comfortable in the group we were in.
After we re-discovered Dreggs, I swear the week just got that bit better :) I know I was alot more comfortable at those points, and actually enjoyed myself without my guard up entirely. Dreggs also meant that we got to see Fair and Square, who sung Jesus Got The Funk, in purple skinnies with a yellow ukelele :P
Totally worth it :P I got videos of their later shows, which are almost as awesome :)
God-wise, I think the spiritual moment I was hoping for came in a very different way to that which I was expecting. I didn't know if I'd allow, but expected one of those falling-over-crying-shaking moments. The first year, I'd felt totally chilled by those moments, and I wanted one for the peace I knew came from it.
I got nothing. I ended up telling Rach that I thought i'd just wait till I could take a gap year, and emerse myself in God, so I'd have no choice but to be with him. My Spirituality could wait till then. The problem was that i couldn't even feel God, which was bizarre. I used to be able to feel where he was particularly present within people or places or ideas. This year, I stood and watched as people had God moments, and felt nothing.
Not even after one of the most amazing speakers I'd heard. I loved how her message was to get out there and do something, there was a take-it-to-the-streets about her. She told us to pray and ask for what we can do, and we'd better do it. I watched as even more people heard from God, had ideas put on them, had spiritual moments, while I sat there hearing nothing.
I sat there thinking, I'll just give up for now. I'll find God later, on a gap year, or something. The woman on stage made a final comment about not giving up.
That was irritating :P I very nearly stuck my tongue out at God.
So I sat, trying not to stare at anyone, not comfortable enough to pray for anyone. My all time favourite song came on- the full version :D- and James told me off for not enjoying it properly :) Jasper mentioned while he'd been sat there, he'd had a Godly moment that made him want to do something.
I casually encouraged it, expecting the usual idea of inspiration to pass, as so often it does at Soul Survivor. People get all fired up, and as he so rightly put it, just wait for their next fix at their next festival.
He spoke to me about it again whilst Secret-Scary-Valley-ing, and it was really obvious it'd been on his mind since then. He was bursting with ideas, and we plotted to discuss it when we got back, to see if it was something other people would be interested in.
The more I think about it, the better it gets in my head. Its the perfect way to get my spirituality back on track, without having to wait for the Gap year. It could genuinely help people. Its something to focus on that I really care about. And its another example of how Gods looked after me when I've shut myself off.
The issue at the moment is that we're not 100% sure what we think it is. We know we want it to have trust and support as if it were a cell group. But we really want a serious side of it to be making a difference to peoples lives, though not necessarily outreach- which is also whey we'd rather attempt at least at first to tackle it on our own without church, so despire it being God led, its also led by us, meaning we'd be more inclined to make it work.
Start Small Aim Huge, i seem to be saying quite alot. Everyone has different passions, and we want to incorporate them to make small, easy differences first, before we move on to BIG issues, like homeless people. But we aim to get there. We really wanna make a difference.
I guess it depends on how motivated we are. But I really want to make this happen. I know Jasper really wants it to. I just hope we'll get support with it. But even if not, I really hope even if its just me and Jasper, that we'll do something. Because if you help one person, thats one person with less to worry about than before.
The more I think about it, the more small and minor but beautiful things I can do to make a bit of an impact. And the more I want to do them.
And while i affectionately call it Saving the world, I just wanna help someone. Because that was my original calling, and I've ignored it for so long that I almost forgot it.
Break my heart for what breaks yours.
It all comes from the idea of Break My Heart For What Breaks Yours, from Hoseanna. We'd spent all day looking for a name, and after about seven hours of random silence on it, Jasper mentioned it to be the lyric he thought was center to our project. We agreed, and attempted to find names which could suit. Nothing summed it all up, but actually summed up well the smaller sections.