The Vision.

(Pete Greig)
"The Vision from Red Moon Rising"

So this guy comes up to me and says "what's the vision? What's the big idea?" I open my mouth and words come out like this…
The vision?

The vision is JESUS – obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.

The vision is an army of young people.

You see bones? I see an army. And they are FREE from materialism.

They laugh at 9-5 little prisons.
They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday.
They wouldn't even notice.
They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the west was won.
They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations. They need no passport.. People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.
They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying.
What is the vision ?
The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes. It makes children laugh and adults angry. It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars. It scorns the good and strains for the best. It is dangerously pure.

Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation.
It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games.
This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause.
A million times a day its soldiers

choose to loose
that they might one day win
the great 'Well done' of faithful sons and daughters.

Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night. They don't need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: "COME ON!"

And this is the sound of the underground
The whisper of history in the making
Foundations shaking
Revolutionaries dreaming once again
Mystery is scheming in whispers
Conspiracy is breathing…
This is the sound of the underground

And the army is discipl(in)ed.

Young people who beat their bodies into submission.

Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms.
The tattoo on their back boasts "for me to live is Christ and to die is gain".

Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes. Winners. Martyrs. Who can stop them ?
Can hormones hold them back?
Can failure succeed? Can fear scare them or death kill them ?

And the generation prays

like a dying man
with groans beyond talking,
with warrior cries, sulphuric tears and
with great barrow loads of laughter!
Waiting. Watching: 24 – 7 – 365.

Whatever it takes they will give: Breaking the rules. Shaking mediocrity from its cosy little hide. Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs, laughing at labels, fasting essentials. The advertisers cannot mould them. Hollywood cannot hold them. Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries.

They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive

inside.

On the outside? They hardly care. They wear clothes like costumes to communicate and celebrate but never to hide.
Would they surrender their image or their popularity?
They would lay down their very lives - swap seats with the man on death row - guilty as hell. A throne for an electric chair.

With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days,

they pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them..

Their DNA chooses JESUS. (He breathes out, they breathe in.)
Their subconscious sings. They had a blood transfusion with Jesus.
Their words make demons scream in shopping centres.
Don't you hear them coming?
Herald the weirdo's! Summon the losers and the freaks. Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes. They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension. Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.

And this vision will be. It will come to pass; it will come easily; it will come soon.
How do I know? Because this is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the Spirit, the very dream of God. My tomorrow is his today. My distant hope is his 3D. And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great 'Amen!' from countless angels, from hero's of the faith, from Christ himself. And he is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner.

Guaranteed.

A Fortnight

A fortnight. Ooooh sounds fun! Are we sleeping in a fort tonight? Awesome....

Will and I started our adventure in Canada with 6 weeks until we were married and a lot of time to just hang out. We had never anticipated that we would be serving for 2 weeks at the summer camp I grew up going to. We just finished up two weeks and it was incredible. I was helping out my friend Alissa directing the program and Will spent one week on maintenance and the other week leading a cabin full of Grade 5's.

It was a really incredible time and I'm thankful for the opportunity. We met some pretty amazing kids throughout the two weeks. It was interesting to see us really draw to the kids that have tough homes and stories. During the high school aged week, we met a guy named Tanner*. He was living in a foster home with a few other kids. His parents had both been heroin addicts but died along the way. He had just gotten off drugs before camp and needed to smoke to help him along. Will got the opportunity daily to take him for drives so he could smoke. Will had some great conversations with him. I watched Tanner over the week and was just touched to see such a rough kid just let his guard down completely. He didn't need to put up a tough front. I just imagined what it would be like in his home and on the streets where I'm sure he had a ton of friends. He even told Will he loved camp because he could just be himself and didn't feel judged. I thought this was an incredible statement, especially for a Christian camp. Most people claim to feel judged around Christians. Anyway, I adored him and wish that we could be near so we could walk a road with him, but that's not possible.

One thing that I think we both realized is how we are both so fit for camp ministry and how camp ministry really does change lives. We're happy to be in Calgary this year to plug into Will's camp, Limber Pine, throughout the year.

So, life is good. Will and I are getting married in a fortnight. I only heard this word used for the first time and learned the definition of it through my dear English friend, Kitty-Cat. (Miss you)