Courage to get out of the Boat

  Today was a day filled with song, prayer, team-leader talks, small group discussions, wonderful food, personal reflection, a ropes course, mass and a learning session about the Rosary.  Our last session tonight was especially meaningful to me as it focused, again, on community and the idea of living as individuals within this group for the rest of the year.  Hannah, one of the many new friends I have made, gave us some insight on things that may come about as this will be her fourth year living in this type of community.  She talked a lot about the fact that everyone here is scared(at one point or another) but everyone here has to take a risk.  As we will be living, breathing, changing and growing within this community, we must learn how to be ourselves but also push ourselves to try new things.  As she talked about the story of Peter becoming a "fisher of men," she stated, "To walk on water, you have to get out of the boat."  So while it's good to find comfort within this community, you should also find that the community is pushing us to be something greater.  All of us here have a mission, we have a purpose, and if we all can realize that about one another, we can help each other in their mission. 
   This makes me think of a concept we discussed at our Chicago orientation a few weeks ago: the idea of "Namaste"(pronounced nah-mas-day).  In India, people greet each other by placing their hands together in front of them (as if in Sunday-School prayer position) and bow as they say "Namaste" which means "My soul is meeting your soul and I am going to see how God is within you." 
   The last thing Hannah said in her talk also seemed to strike me in an intriguing way.  As she talked about living in community with others and learning how to make that sort of lifestyle work for you, she wrote on the board the popular verse from 1 Corinthians 13:4 that says "Love is patient, love is kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude....(and so on)" and then she posed the ultimate question.  Her question was, can you replace the word Love with your name?  What a grounding thought. 
  So, among many other things, today I learned about the importance of being courageous.  I will admit, I was rather nervous leading up to the praying of the Rosary, I didn't know what they were going to think of me when I told them I'd never done the prayer before.  I figured I just had to jump in (though I don't think I had much choice as the last thing I wanted to do was be disrespectful) and be open to the new experience. Turns out I was not the only one who had never done it before, 2 of the girls from Germany were rather nervous about it too.  In the end, I learned a lot about the tradition and they made it very clear that it's okay if it doesn't exactly line up with my own tradition, they aren't expecting me to change my beliefs just for them. They just want us to experience it and learn about it so we can help the kids to learn about it when they come on retreat. 
Just as Hannah had said about having the courage to be yourself and stay strong in your faith(and it couldn't be more true):  If you don't step out of the boat, you'll never walk on water.