Be a Realist, Ask for the Impossible
"I experienced a unity that existed between every single person there and it was so clear to me how lucky I was to have found a place in which people want to take their lives seriously but also know how to have fun."For me, GS vacations have always been moments to step back and examine my life and the way I have been living my relationship with Christ and with my friends and family. This summer I found myself listening but not really digesting anything. I wasn’t letting myself be surprised by anything that was happening. The moment everything changed for me was the second to last night of the vacation. I love the stars. In all of the GS vacations I have attended, we had never gone stargazing together, until that night when Franny Fornasini, an astrophysicist, came to give us a presentation on stars and how they are formed. As I lay out under the night sky on a cheap hammock from CVS with my friends, looking up at the stars, I couldn’t stop smiling. For the first time in a long time, I experienced a sweet moment of complete bliss. Everyone was so tired from the events of the vacation but everyone was so happy to be there together and in front of the unknown that is the universe. From that moment on, I experienced a unity that existed between every single person there and it was so clear to me how lucky I was to have found a place in which people want to take their lives seriously but also know how to have fun.
My experience of this vacation was a perfect way to send me on my way to college as I felt that it was a clear representation of my life in GS for the past four years. It started out as a place where I would kind of just go to escape my reality and have a good time with my friends while listening to the adults say things that were interesting, but I didn’t really care for. Then I found myself getting annoyed and frustrated because I didn’t know what to do with all of these questions and, at some points, everything just sounded like bullshit. Finally, I arrived at this point of genuine happiness, even among all of my anxiety and my depression. By just simply being there, without getting in my head about things, and listening actively and participating in the vacation, I realized how loved I am and how impossible it seemed. Where else would you find a group of teenage kids wanting to learn about the stars or listening to a presentation about poetry given by another teenager who related those poems back to her relationship with the religious sense, or even listen to an adult talk about a play about an old Roman Emperor who wanted the moon? For me, I saw how great it is to live an authentic life in which one says yes to Christ. I saw that the newness of what is told to us does not come from just listening to the words, but rather the relationship that you have with them.
In the final assembly, Vitaliy said something that has stuck with me. He told us to think of our relationship with the mystery as you would a relationship with a close friend. You can know everything about your friend, and yet you don’t get bored of the friend. You stay in front of your close friend and say, “What are you asking of me now?” That is a question that I can’t seem to stop asking when put in front of reality, whether I am struggling or I’m happy.
Liz, New York, USA