Church of the Holey Rocks

I have spent this past year discovering what it means to be at home. In moving from Olathe to Ft. Worth and now to St. Louis, what is home to me is no longer crystal clear. I no longer find myself in single, familiar location at the end of each day.

The same has been true for my church life as I have found myself in two completely new congregations in the past year, and one that feels new because it has changed and grown so much. The spirit grows tired weaving in and out of several different communities of faith. While it finds nourishment in each one, it also struggles to make itself at home within a new way of worship. I am not a person that thrives on routine, but sometimes I think my spirit is very Type A in that once it finds something that inspires and nurtures it; it seeks whatever that element is on a continual basis.

For almost four years my spirit sought community every Sunday morning at 9:10 AM when the early worshipers at St. Andrew would join hands and sing our benediction. In the past year, my spirit has gone through the appropriate withdraw and acceptance, and now it is seeking a new routine — one that will provide it with the same sense of peace and overwhelming love.

I was blessed to have spent this past weekend with several of the members of Union Avenue Christian Church's Third Floor Sunday school class and their families on a camping and float trip 100 miles southwest of St. Louis. I spent three days catching up with my good friend, Alison Williams, and getting to know many of the members of my new church family. Without the distractions of my daily life — my cell phone, my laptop, and my blow dryer — I had the opportunity to truly immerse myself in this new faith community that I am becoming a part of.

We spent almost all of Saturday canoeing on Huzzah Creek. By the time we reached the end of our journey, I was exhausted and satisfied and felt more a part of this church family than I had in the past three weeks. I don't know if it was because I truly felt at home or if it was because I was too tired not to be completely myself, but this wonderful group of people that I had traveled with — the Benzingers, the McNeills, the Muellers, the Lyonses and, of course, Alison — felt very familiar and very welcoming.

I met Alison last summer when she interned at St. Andrew, and we talked later Saturday night about the words that one of St. Andrew's most beloved members had shared with her before she finished her internship last summer: "Remember you are always a part of St. Andrew; you may go away but once you've been here you will always be a part of this family." What both Alison and Natalie Dixon, an intern two years ago, found at St. Andrew, what I hope that this year's interns, Rebekah Cypert and Michelle Harvick, will find this summer, is a sense of family, a sense of belonging and love that follows you as you pass from one life experience to the next.

On Sunday morning, what remained of our small group gathered on a rocky riverbank for worship. It was nothing elaborate, just a few prayers and a communion of hamburger buns and grape juice, but it was the bread of life that I had been seeking.

After worship, we played in the river, catching crayfish and finding the most unique rocks on the river bottom — rocks formed by volcanoes riddled with holes that are home to God's smallest creatures or speckled with small crystals that shone in the sunlight. As I stood thigh-deep in the cool, clear water, laughing and exploring, I realized that my spirit had found exactly what it was seeking — not a single, familiar place to call home or church, but the ability to find inspiration in any place "where two or more are gathered in Christ's name." Peace comes to us in the strangest of places and in the most unexpected of people. This weekend I found peace at the Church of the Holey Rocks.

Thank you, Most Loving One, for blessing my spiritual journey with many homes along the way.

Kelly Rand is in her second year as a HELM Leadership Fellow and is a member of St. Andrew Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Olathe, Kansas.