DYA is my favorite

I recently finished working two and a half weeks for the Duke Youth Academy. I'm sure most people got tired of hearing me say DYA is my favorite thing, since I said it every day several times a day. I thought I'd try to explain why it was my favorite in more detail, since several people asked and I wasn't able to give anyone the whole story. I’ve detailed more specifically the things I’ve gotten out of DYA when I was younger in other blog posts, but basically what I got out of attending as a student was that when I was in high school, after 3 years of dealing with crippling major depression, having no friends and being made fun of or ignored by my peers in school and church, for two weeks at DYA I started to feel alive again, and my suicidal thoughts started fading. I met people who liked me and were nice to me and could feel God in my life again. My life was forever changed by the people I met and what I experienced. I made friends I still keep up with today who have helped me in many various circumstances and have generally been a joy to know. Because of DYA I worked at Camp Chestnut Ridge for 2 summers and met many more lovely people who have been wonderful in my life. Going to the DYA reunions I met more DYA-ers from other years who were just as great as the people my year, but were older and had more life experience, which was and is great. Prior to DYA going to Divinity school had never registered as a possibility for my future, but I considered it a strong option after DYA. Various other things in my life came together that finally made me decide to go to Divinity school (details of that are actually in my previous blog post). I'm thinking I'll most likely be a professor rather than a pastor, but we'll see. After this year's DYA my fellow staff members talked to me about taking some time off between college and Divinity school, which I will probably do, though I'm not sure what I'll do in that in between time yet.

I feel so blessed to have been able to work for DYA this year as an RA. When I attended DYA I was sure my RA’s hated me and my roommate because we were always talking past lights out, and we were slow in the morning. We got yelled at a lot. I made it a goal not to yell at the students….which only lasted a few days. I wasn’t yelling from a place of anger, I just preferred yelling to softly saying the same thing at each door. And it seems more effective at hurrying people along to where they need to be. So it’s possible the students thought I didn’t like them, but I really loved all of them, and now I’m sure my RA’s loved me as well. I didn't get to interact with the students as much as I would have liked to, but I got to do the everyday tasks that make it possible for them to experience DYA like I did, which made me so happy. And the times I did get to interact with the kids were great. They were such an awesome group of young people.

My second day of staff training I wrote in my journal "Brian, Kep, Allison and King James are really great. I think we're going to make a great RA Team." And we totally were! I have slight PTSD around church people because of bad experiences with my church growing up, and DYA and Camp Chestnut Ridge are the only places where I can really relax in worship. I still don't feel comfortable praying out loud even at DYA though, which I told my RA group. James asked me if I would like to pray about every other day and I replied "no thank you." At our last RA morning meeting though, I did pray out loud, because of all the love and support the other RA's showed me all throughout the 2 weeks. I loved working with everyone at DYA, and appreciated the times the mentors and other people helped the RA's out. People supporting me the day my parents moved from my beautiful childhood home was a blessing as well. I’m also thankful for James and Paul helping me pack my car after DYA in the ridiculous heat. And Martine and Heidi’s sweet notes in my mailbox. And Martine, Allison, and Ronya-Lee dancing. And everyone who played music and sang and painted. For Russ, Lindsey, Kep, James, and Andrew making me laugh, Hannah’s smile, Laura and I laughing in church. For Peter and Alaina listening to me. And for Kep teaching me to throw a pot, and for Katherine letting us use her wheel. And Matthew and Paul helping me with my continued fear of church. And the people from past years that have helped support me getting on antidepressants and continuing to deal with my mental health problems. And inside jokes: channel 2 on the walkie, “Thank you SO MUCH!” “Thesis #4 YOU ARE A SINNER!” “I fail to knit together how YOUR house burning down is MY problem”.  In the Lord I’ll be ever thankful. The really great thing about DYA for me is that the community doesn't end when we leave one another. If any DYA students are reading this, DYA doesn't have to end. You can always be super crazy like me and go to all the reunions and then work for DYA someday (I highly recommend this).

I laughed so much at DYA, and I love laughing. I got so many hugs at DYA and I love hugs. I learned new things about God, which I love, and met new people who showed me God's love, which I also love. Even if I didn’t mention your name above, every single staff member has a special place in my heart, because you made me feel loved and accepted, and many of the students showed God’s love to me in different ways every day. I learned some new ways to pray, got to do morning prayer in Duke Chapel (which didn't happen when I was a student), got to play card games and show people my pet fish Gill. For me, life doesn't get much better than that.

A little slow on the uptake...

I attended the Duke Youth Academy for Christian formation (DYA) almost 4 years ago, the summer between my Junior and Senior year of high school. It's the best thing I've ever done, but other than that description, I've always had a hard time explaining it to people. It's similar to many church things I've been to over the years with some slightly different activities as well. There was lots of worship, preaching, community service, art, prayer, and listening to the Divinity School Professors. But it far surpassed anything I had done before or anything I've done since, and I couldn't really explain why, other than it's just a really great community and program. Every time I've gone back for reunions, I feel just like I did when I went there, and it's the only place where I feel deeply good, and the place my depression and anxiety least affect me. When I went to the reunion this summer, I think they asked us to reflect on what we liked about DYA, and I wrote that I enjoyed learning about God. I hear a lot about God and go to church often, but I didn't feel like I was learning new things about God like I did/do at DYA. That was the first time I really thought about that. I didn't really think much about it after that. Then I heard Dr. Hauerwas read an excerpt from his memoir, which I deeply related to, immediately bought, and read over the summer. It made me seriously consider being a theologian as a profession. I've never wanted to be a pastor, but being a theologian like Hauerwas seemed pretty great.

So flash forward to yesterday morning, where I was taking an exam in my evolution of vertebrate life class, and one of the questions was something like "People who studied nature as a means of learning about God were called ________" the answer is "naturalists", but in my head I thought "that's me". I've always loved science and never found it to be conflicting with my faith, but rather enhancing my awe of who God was and his beautiful, incredible creation.

So later that night, I was reading a book called The Passionate Intellect, which I hadn't gotten far into, but was enjoying. It reminded me of DYA for some reason. Of course, it is a religious book about theology, so it makes sense that that would remind me of theology camp. I got through a paragraph of the book which was describing what theology is and just stopped reading as a series of realizations hit me, all of which were wonderful and I would like to now share. I think the quote in the book that stopped me was "By refreshing our vision of God, theology ensures that we constantly present faith as a dynamic, transformative reality to our culture. We speak of God, not in terms of wooden repetition of the past, but with the excitement and passion of discovery and commitment."

So now comes the shocking revelation I had, which is really quite simple and I was very surprised it took me almost 4 years to realize. It made me feel like a bit of a failure at learning what DYA was teaching, but all the Professors were really smart, so maybe they just didn't go over the basics. Or maybe they did and I wasn't paying attention. Before last night I would have told you I liked learning about theology and the DYA taught me a lot about theology, and it certainly did. But what I suddenly came to realize was that DYA didn't just teach me about theology, it WAS theology, in action. We were living and doing theology all the time. And I can finally say that is WHY it's the best thing I've ever done. I loved living theology "with the excitement and passion of discovery" as the book I was reading last night said. That was the thing about DYA that made it the best thing I've ever done. I loved learning about church traditions and different beliefs and styles and doing theology myself instead of someone doing it for me and telling me what it meant and what it looked like. I was free to draw, dance, pray, sing, learn, and accept the theology I wanted to, and was constantly getting new suggestions and encouragement on how I could go about that. So yea, someone may have said that was what DYA was about at some point, but I definitely missed that. I thought it was about making people go into ministry or something. And it's probably about that too, but for me, what made it the best thing ever was that it was theology. and I just realized that last night.

Also, last night I realized why I loved Hauerwas' memoir so much. I had explained that book to people much in the same way I explained DYA. I loved the book, but couldn't really put my finger on why I loved it. I felt like I was just like Hauerwas. Except that I'm not an 80 year old man who likes cursing and is super smart. We don't really have the same life experiences or the same personality, but like I told a couple people, it's like we both think in the same way, go through the same sort of processing of things that happen in our life. It wasn't quite that either though. So last night I of course realized that the reason I loved the book is that Hauerwas is a theologian. And so am I. Not professionally of course, but it's what I've always loved. Hauerwas and I, like many others, love learning new things about a God who is alive and not static. About church traditions that have been forgotten, or marginalized, but are so important.

So now I'm pretty sure I have to go to Divinity school and be a theologian. Last night I suddenly felt like my whole life made sense. This morning I realized there were still lots of things about my life that were confusing and sucked, but I still understand so much more about myself than I did yesterday morning. I have always been frustrated with school because I like so many subjects and didn't want to chose one to major in. I finally settled on Biology with a minor in American Indian studies, and last night I also realized that the reason I love those things is rooted in my love of theology. I love learning about those things because in learning about them, I learn new things about God, and new ways to understand Him. It's also why I love writing poetry, singing, playing guitar, and astronomy. But I didn't love any of those things enough that I felt like I wanted to do them for the rest of my life. I think I could enjoy doing theology for the rest of my life though. Because at the root of all the subjects I enjoy is the fact that I think differently and interact differently with God because of them. But I might love Biology enough to do something with that for the rest of my life too. We'll just have to wait and see.