Walk in Love: Do You All Mean It?

What do you find it hard to believe sometimes? When walking in love gets hard to do, who do you look to for inspiration to keep trying?

“Do you all mean all that kingdom of God stuff you have us talk about?” he asked me as we sat on the pavement outside the building where the camp talent show/karaoke night was taking place.

This was the third night in a row where I sat adjacent to the all- camp activity with this particular camper, processing challenges that happened throughout the day;boundaries that got pushed, relationships that got thorny, repeated instructions that got ignored.Every night we’d make a little bit more progress and I almost looked forward to our evening conversations, even while they were complicated.

“What makes you ask that?”I asked him in return. “Just curious,” he replied.

“We try to mean it,” I answered, “It isn’t always easy and it isn’t always a straight line, but I think we try to mean it.”

“We’ll see, I guess,” he noted before walking away, the bulk of our conversation having already finished.

For the next two nights we would keep up the pattern of our evening conversations. He would coyly smile every time I walked up. “I must be your favorite camper,” he’d say laughing.

On the last day of camp, he made eye contact with me across the parking lot and ran up after loading his suitcase in the trunk.

“I think I almost believe you – all that kingdom of God stuff. It doesn’t make sense, but I almost believe you.”

Walking in love isn’t always a straight line and it isn’t always comfortable and it isn’t always easy to believe. But in the moments when the world feels like it’s overflowing with pain and hurt and brokenness, I hear his words echo in my head: “I think I almost believe you – all that kingdom of God stuff. It doesn’t make sense, but I almost believe you,” and I figure I can try to start the walk again – one step, one conversation, one honest answer at a time.

— The Rev. Spencer Hatcher serves as the Executive Director of the Barbara C. Harris Camp and Conference Center in Greenfield, NH where she’s lucky enough to be a part of a summer camp that serves the dioceses of Massachusetts, Western Massachusetts, and New Hampshire.