Post-Basileia Story: The gift of an image

It's been another hard year, but Basileia was so good and refreshing that I nearly forgot all about how hard it was.

One of the reasons is because of a significant moment for me during chapter time.  While I had been leading these sessions earlier in the week, I decided to step back and give control over to the new Servant Leadership Team (SLT, student exec board) to get some practice.  So I kept my mouth shut as much as I could and let them run with their ideas.  They started off by posing the question, "What does vision mean?" to the group for discussion.  Then Marian spoke up.

"Well, I like to think of vision as a picture of an island," she said, in her usual light-hearted manner.  She went on to explain how we are standing on an island, looking out and seeing another island across the water, and how it looks so beautiful and wonderful that we just can't stay on this island any longer - we must get in a boat and go to that other island.  Vision is the picture of getting to that other, better island.

via Unsplash

To you, it may seem silly or insignificant, but let me tell you a little bit about who Marian is.  Marian was one of the very first students I started working with when I switched campuses to RIT.  My official capacity began at Basileia the year Marian was one of my new student leaders.  It was a crazy year of learning about the campus culture and learning how to lead in the midst of that learning.

One of the ways I led was by teaching the new team what vision was and how it described the current state of the chapter.  The image I used was that of an island.  I said that some students were in the boat, ready to go to that wonderful island but just didn't know how, and some students were back on the shore, confused about why we needed to leave this perfectly good island in the first place.  I often exhorted the SLT to lead other students in such a way that invites more students to come on board the boat, and invites the students who are already on board to have greater clarity around the direction in which we're going.

It was such a distinct image for me that I even journaled about it.

So hearing Marian share about this image was a rattling moment for me in bringing the past 3 years of staff to the present.  It was a moment of experiencing God's presence, with Him saying, "I have been and still am doing a good work in you and through you."  It was a concrete, tangible way to hold on to Jesus in a time where not many of those moments come around.

What a gift from the Lord!