Charlotte McNamee
I really wasn’t sure what to expect as I hauled a bucket of acrylic paint, mini canvases, and a few bottles of water across Boston College’s campus. I weaved through the masses of students bustling to their next class as a few stared at the huffing and puffing woman with rattling paintbrushes. It was a beautiful day which made the walkways particularly impenetrable with people.
Today was our very first “Sabbath Hour,” an initiative that Garrett and I introduced to our college students at BC this semester. The idea is simple. Create a space, just one hour a week, to give students the opportunity to take a break in the middle of their overcrowded weeks.
While Garrett has been serving faithfully on BC’s campus for the past three years, I am brand new to college ministry as of this summer. I prayed in anticipation of this school year for insight from the Lord regarding how He would like to speak into the lives of our students. Thinking back to my own time as a college student, I remember drowning in homework, social obligations, and club commitments with little to no margin. What would it have looked like to have cultivated a biblical imagination for rest during such an important yet busy season of life?
Our hope and our prayer with Sabbath Hour is, rather than being one more meeting to squeeze into students schedules, to simply be an open and consistent space to pause. Unsure of how many students would be interested in taking a pause, I planned for a simple Lectio Divina prayer and a creative response, prepared for the possibility of the afternoon turning into a personal solitude practice.
Arriving at an opening on the quad, I put down the paint, laid out a blanket, and waited. One of our student leaders arrived and, upon seeing the paint supplies, quickly informed me, “I just want you to know that I can’t paint.” I told him, “No worries, it doesn’t matter what it looks like, it’s about the practice of responding to God.”
I led a Lectio Divina prayer with our little four-person group on Matthew 6:24–36; “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?” (Matthew 6:25 NIV). After our meditation on God’s Word, we transitioned our creative response. As we squeezed out paint, wet our brushes, and swiped across our canvases, we each reflected on what we heard from God. Images start to take shape amidst our conversation. The sense of stress melting off our bodies and our breath steadying was palpable. I glanced up at our confessed non-painter to find a stunning landscape of a campfire in his hands. He smiled, “I guess I can paint.”
To learn more about how you can support college ministry at Church of the Cross, contact Garrett Rice at garrett@cotcboston.org
Charlotte McNamee has been attending Church of the Cross for two years and lives in Brighton right next to Boston College. She serves college students in the Boston area as part-time campus ministry staff with CCO.
