Lila ~ May 5

 

I sit here at a desk in Lake Junaluska Retreat Center in Lake Junaluska, North Carolina. It is a Christian conference center nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I am attending a conference with Called to Peace Ministries, a faith-based conference for women who are survivors of domestic violence, trauma and abuse.

 

The name "called to peace" comes from 1st Corinthians 7, when St. Paul gives directions concerning marriage. In the case of marriage to an unbelieving spouse, Paul encourages people to stay as a witness to the gospel, provided that there is general peace in the marriage and that the difference in belief doesn't cause too much of a rift. 

 

The point of the ministry is to support women whose marriages were not at peace and staying just for the sake of preserving the marriage--as churches often encourage women to do--was harmful for them. 

 

I heard about this ministry through a woman whose blog I read Rebecca Davis who writes a blog and a series of books called untwisting scriptures, unpacking how various passages of scripture are twisted against hurting people with everything from "wives submit to your husbands" to scriptures about unnecessary suffering, and many other things. 

 

This place is run by the United Methodist Church and was a retreat and gathering place for missionaries coming home from overseas, as well as a place for Christians to gather in the summer for camp meetings and family time. It's not too far from Montreat where Billy Graham retired and where my mother recalled going to some meetings too with her family when she was young. 

 

She also spent Summers closer to home at a camp called massanetta at massanetta springs outside of Harrisonburg and right across the road from Sunnyside where my grandmother would eventually live out her final years. 

 

But Massanetta is bare bones compared to this place. It had nothing beyond wooden cabins and maybe a few houses.  Here at Lake Junaluska, I am staying in the Lambeth, a hotel with beautiful classical architecture overlooking the lake. I signed up for a double room but my roommate never showed up so I had the whole room to myself. 

 

I see places like this as an extension of a larger Christian culture, a Christian people, who settled in these mountains, from whom my mother descends. German, English and Scotts Irish settlers seeking new land and fresh opportunity, who trickled all down throughout the cricks and hollers of Appalachia, bringing their Christian faith with them. 

 

It was also at a camp like this that my mother was told that she was a little wretch, and that she would hang in limbo because she wasn't sure if she believed in Jesus is her Lord and Savior.