The last two days of Compass had a few high points. One of them was the only time on Compass when I willfully broke the rules. But hey, it wasn't like we did anything wrong, and the leaders were cool with it. What happened was, we were told by Kaleo group's leader that he was going to the place where we always had group worship and anyone who wanted could turn up. When I got there, there were four guys there, worshiping without inhibition. I joined in. After a while, most of Compass was there, singing, praying, being ourselves, completely open in front of each other and before God. It was so wonderful, feeling free to kneel, to pray aloud, to "stand with arms high and heart abandoned, in awe of the One who gave it all." To do all this and not be judged. The Holy Spirit was totally there and we didn't want to go anywhere. But there came a point when the leader (his nickname is Rappa) said softly, "It's past your bedtime. We've given you grace tonight, so can you please head back to the dorm..." Silently we left. But Sparky said to me and to four others, "I want to go to the prayer chapel. We have grace tonight, let's go..."
The prayer chapel is my favorite place on that campus. More so than the tree The Friz and I climbed, or the little cafe where Compass opened and closed, more so than the quad where we spent so much time playing Frisbee together...
You're probably asking why there's all the paper and stuff on the walls. There is graffiti all over the chapel, completely prayer requests, petitions, praises, stories of how God spoke to people, found them, changed them, saved them... It's an amazing place. There's a basket on the floor with colored pencils and pens for people to write on the wall, and in one panel it read, "Pray for Compass RMI 2009." It listed there the names of all the participants. The panel beneath it was empty.
I took a colored pencil and wrote on the panel beneath the 2009 RMI one, "Pray for Compass RMI 2010." Then, with the help of the other five there, I listed the names of all of us, students and leaders.
After a little while, we headed back to the dorm. The leaders weren't upset at where we had gone, and it had been beyond a wonderful evening.
The other thing was the last night. We had our talent show, and as has already been mentioned, this was totally a community of artists. We heard that night a song written by The Joker during Compass about his LaVida experience, a song written by my seatmate/skitmate "Joyce" a good while ago, a song written by a guy in the Kaleo group and a girl in the TBC group, a song on the violin written by another girl from the TBC group, a medley compiled by Glove Love and a guy from TBC, and so much more. One guy rapped, and Enrique, confessing that he was being bribed, did an interpretive dance to a Michael Jackson song, etc. And I shared a short "Dramatic Reading" (according to our MCs) that I had written the previous day. It was a present-tense, first-person allegory based off of personal experience, a host of testimonies I had heard that month, and (as you might guess) the Lifehouse Everything Skit.
Having never felt comfortable sharing my writing before, I had never gotten to see it through others' eyes. Therefore, I was astonished when the people I talked with afterward, and all the girls (at girl talk) demanded that I share my writing more, send them a copy, write a book, etc.
That night, after man-hunt (it was past our bedtime, but getting to bed at eleven on the last night was so not happening) we had girl talk. Yes. (We were supposed, due to a revision, to go to bed at twelve, but the lady leaders said they didn't care as long as we didn't keep them up and the lights were off.) We piled into Sweet n' Spazzy's and "Joyce's" bedroom and talked about real stuff, relevant stuff, questions of theology, school, faith, relationships, etc. until the wee hours of the night (3:15 AM, more than an hour after we had gotten up the day we left for Mexico).
The next morning we packed, did Compass Time, worshiped together one more time (our parents were there by then) and then I watched Glove Love, "Calvin," and more get into a van to go to the airport. I watched until the van was out of sight, and then these brothers were gone. I still don't know if or when I will ever see them again. In the same way, we left. I was not the last one gone. The Friz insisted on giving me a piggy-back ride to the car (much to the amusement of my mother) and we said goodbye as late as possible. It occurred to me later that among the people I never got to say a real goodbye to were The Joker (we had a team group hug but that was it), "Joyce," and more.
I'm never going to forget any of them, and now that they have instituted the annual reunion (or "shindig") I hope and pray that they can come back, and that we can all be together again.
The end...
or is it?
The prayer chapel is my favorite place on that campus. More so than the tree The Friz and I climbed, or the little cafe where Compass opened and closed, more so than the quad where we spent so much time playing Frisbee together...
You're probably asking why there's all the paper and stuff on the walls. There is graffiti all over the chapel, completely prayer requests, petitions, praises, stories of how God spoke to people, found them, changed them, saved them... It's an amazing place. There's a basket on the floor with colored pencils and pens for people to write on the wall, and in one panel it read, "Pray for Compass RMI 2009." It listed there the names of all the participants. The panel beneath it was empty.I took a colored pencil and wrote on the panel beneath the 2009 RMI one, "Pray for Compass RMI 2010." Then, with the help of the other five there, I listed the names of all of us, students and leaders.
After a little while, we headed back to the dorm. The leaders weren't upset at where we had gone, and it had been beyond a wonderful evening.
The other thing was the last night. We had our talent show, and as has already been mentioned, this was totally a community of artists. We heard that night a song written by The Joker during Compass about his LaVida experience, a song written by my seatmate/skitmate "Joyce" a good while ago, a song written by a guy in the Kaleo group and a girl in the TBC group, a song on the violin written by another girl from the TBC group, a medley compiled by Glove Love and a guy from TBC, and so much more. One guy rapped, and Enrique, confessing that he was being bribed, did an interpretive dance to a Michael Jackson song, etc. And I shared a short "Dramatic Reading" (according to our MCs) that I had written the previous day. It was a present-tense, first-person allegory based off of personal experience, a host of testimonies I had heard that month, and (as you might guess) the Lifehouse Everything Skit.
Having never felt comfortable sharing my writing before, I had never gotten to see it through others' eyes. Therefore, I was astonished when the people I talked with afterward, and all the girls (at girl talk) demanded that I share my writing more, send them a copy, write a book, etc.
That night, after man-hunt (it was past our bedtime, but getting to bed at eleven on the last night was so not happening) we had girl talk. Yes. (We were supposed, due to a revision, to go to bed at twelve, but the lady leaders said they didn't care as long as we didn't keep them up and the lights were off.) We piled into Sweet n' Spazzy's and "Joyce's" bedroom and talked about real stuff, relevant stuff, questions of theology, school, faith, relationships, etc. until the wee hours of the night (3:15 AM, more than an hour after we had gotten up the day we left for Mexico).
The next morning we packed, did Compass Time, worshiped together one more time (our parents were there by then) and then I watched Glove Love, "Calvin," and more get into a van to go to the airport. I watched until the van was out of sight, and then these brothers were gone. I still don't know if or when I will ever see them again. In the same way, we left. I was not the last one gone. The Friz insisted on giving me a piggy-back ride to the car (much to the amusement of my mother) and we said goodbye as late as possible. It occurred to me later that among the people I never got to say a real goodbye to were The Joker (we had a team group hug but that was it), "Joyce," and more.
I'm never going to forget any of them, and now that they have instituted the annual reunion (or "shindig") I hope and pray that they can come back, and that we can all be together again.
The end...
or is it?
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