Living Inside Hope

Sunday night, sleep deprived and shivering, I dragged my suitcase up three flights of stairs, dropped it in the middle of my almost uncluttered floor, hugged my roommate and sat down to finish my ten page research paper. Strangely enough, I was overwhelmed with a greater sense of peace then I had felt in a long time, because over the course of my weekend in Florida with my fellow "Helmsters," I began slowly making my way back to my roots.

In the midst of freshman year, first semester, tests, papers, working, partying, cleaning, meetings, mediocre food, and making new friends, I got lost in the shuffle. The HELM/Phillips Legacy Leadership Conference this weekend was a breath of fresh air.

In my World Faiths and Fictions class we've been discussing the Buddhist belief in the persistence of place. Everything in this world is impermanent except for the physical geography of this world. The sacred mountain of Emi Shan will always plunge upward from China's rolling landscape.

What does that have to do with my weekend in Florida? Where do I begin? I am blessed to be a member of St. Andrew Christian Church in Olathe, Kansas...a church of Salvadorian-inspired architecture and a passion for social justice. I am who I am — a so-called "tree-hugging, bleeding-heart, liberal" — because the liberation theologist within me was nurtured when I joined St. Andrew my freshman year of high school. When I moved down to TCU, next to my family, St. Andrew was the hardest thing for me to leave behind, because it is the one place in my life where I know exactly who I am and what I stand for. Someone older and wiser told me this weekend that I was "church-sick," because since coming to school I have yet to find a church community to call my home. This past weekend was, in a sense, a homecoming for me.

I was blessed with the opportunity to meet two wonderfully educated and spiritually vibrant women — Kay Bessler-Northcutt and Stephanie Paulsell — who were familiar with my beloved St. Andrew, and I was able to surround myself with people who share my passion and hope for peace, justice and equality. The hope for a better world where "there is enough for everyone and everyone has enough" transcends time and distance. It is so much greater than a sanctuary centered around a communion table and a brilliantly painted cross depicting a Hispanic Jesus. The persistence of place... St. Andrew will always be a part of my make up, not because of its physical beauty, but because of the beauty of its mission and purpose: "to be a shalom community; a gathered people, seeking God's peace, justice, healing, and wholeness in every part of our lives and the world." I found my shalom community is Florida this past weekend, and I have no doubt that I will find it again and again as I pursue a life of Christian leadership based on a passion for social justice and a deep hope in the ability of people to not only change, but to overturn the cruelty of this world.

Allow me to leave you with my words to live by courtesy of my favorite author, Barbara Kingsolver, "The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof. What I want is so simple I almost can't way it: elementary kindness. Enough to eat, enough to go around. The possibility that kids might one day grow up to be neither the destroyers nor the destroyed. That's about it. Right now I'm living in that hope, running down its hallway and touching the walls on both sides."

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