Our lives are busy, and frantic, and stressful. But, in all the crazy scheduling, we can find peace. Because I really believe this, I am doing a series of workshops that focus on Christian Spiritual Practices. Each week, I lead a group in learning about a different spiritual discipline. Sometimes we practice it together, sometimes not. My hope is that it will provide some peace in our hectic lives. I have certainly felt the peaceful, centering, fulfilling power of the traditions we have already explored.

Ironically, though, my greatest source of peace this semester is utterly disconnected from the workshops. The TCU Disciples on Campus took a camping trip to Enchanted Rock, Texas, over fall break. Enchanted Rock is an enormous granite precipice found in the Texas Hill Country, and mid-October in Texas is a gorgeous time to be alive. I absolutely adore camping, and TCU DOC is my family at school. Given these facts, I was thrilled to be going on this trip; I had no idea how meaningful it would really be.

We arrived at our campsite on Thursday after a (very) leisurely drive from Fort Worth. We set up camp, started a fire, and had dinner. After dinner, I led a short devotional that I have wanted to lead for quite some time. We read Romans 1:20, a passage from "The Magician's Nephew" by C.S. Lewis, and a short history of Enchanted Rock. Then we talked about how the beauty, wonder, and majesty of God's creation inspires us and should encourage us to live as we ought to live-as children of God and followers of Christ. We closed by singing How Great Thou Art a cappella. (We found out the next morning that a local minister was staying in the site across from us on a mini-retreat, and he heard us singing as he was reading his Bible and praying. Awesome!)

Even this fabulous time of worship was not my mountaintop, though. Around 9:30 pm, we were sitting around the fire when someone suggested a night hike on the granite formation behind our site. Five of us then set out in the moonlight and the crisp autumn air. We would walk, sometimes talking, but sometimes enjoying the silence. Every now and then, we would notice that one of our group had fallen behind — not because the hike was strenuous or because our pace was neck-breaking, but because he or she had found a spot that was right. The view would be just right, or the breeze just brisk enough, or the air smelled better there. We each found a spot where we felt God's presence, and we each spent some time enjoying that communion.

Eventually, we reached the top of the rock formation, and we sat back on the rock, looking at the stars and the clouds, and the land in the dappled moonlight. We had deep conversations, and conversations about the pictures in the sky, and no conversation at all, and conversation with the One who Created it all. We stayed until the moon began to set (about 2:30am), and even then we didn't want to leave that holy spot.

In those hours, I found such real, wonderful, almost tangible peace. Now, as I look at my seemingly infinite To-Do list, I recall and relive that peace, and sing, "My God, how great thou art!"

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