GS: East Coast Summer Vacation 2008

More water games

Guest Post by Sophie Lewis:

The theme of the 2008 GS East Coast Summer Vacation was: You Shall Know the Truth and the Truth Shall Set You Free. Christopher Bacich led the vacation, and he started out with a question: "Are you free?"

He told us that often, people don’t even know what true freedom is; they think they are already free. The problem is to determine what true freedom is, and verify if you want true freedom. You feel free when your desire is fulfilled, but you are always left wanting more, that thing can’t fulfill forever.

Singing

Then on Saturday, Chris asked another question, this time in the context of an assembly. He asked; "What is the Truth? Do you desire the Truth in your life?" Ester said that Truth is the meaning of something that corresponds to me, that describes all the constituent factors of something.

Chris explained that this tells us about our humanity, because we as human beings want there to be meaning, even when it is not there, we still want it to be there, we cry out for the Truth. We as human beings need meaning, if we define ourselves by what we do; we say our meaning is in our actions.

Hike on Mount Haystack

But what if this is not your meaning? People try to deal with this problem in two ways in history, skepticism and fideism. Skeptics just try to forget and don’t think about their desire, they don’t want to even admit they have this desire. In fideism you cling to a belief of some kind, usually religious, as something to believe, such as the reason to do something is to be good. But both these positions are not good. The skeptical position leaves me wanting, and fideism’s belief is always shattered by reality. But something happens: A human being who says, “I am the Way, the Truth, the Life.” A group of people followed him because he knew the Truth. So the true reason I exist is to know You.

And so we must judge. Who is this Man? As Chris said, His gaze is in that of everyone, in Jeanine, and Ester, in Vincent, and Kelsey, in Monica, and countless others. He is, ‘mixed up in us.’ The judgment enables us to ask, everyday, Christ, mix Yourself with me.

As well as the talks and assemblies, there were games, hikes, and a presentation by Jonathan
Fields on Beethoven’s Triple Concerto in C, and also a presentation on Dark Matter by André Derrien.

Water games

As Chris said, "What should I do when I find this humanity? Follow. The more you see this Man the more you realize that you need to be in a relationship with this Man."

Singing at the final assembly

Singing at final assembly