By Samantha Tousignant

Saturday, June 25

After breakfast at the camp, we met by the lake 'on the rocks' for morning prayer. Following our prayer, bus ride into the city, and several subway stops, we finally reached our destination of St. John the Divine Cathedral's Children's Garden. As we walked around the circular garden, we could see different animal sculptures made by different ages of students around the country. Next, we met up with Pastor Chris's sister at V&T's pizza place for lunch. All of us really enjoyed the pizza, but we weren't sure if it was 'traditional' New York Style pizza. However, we managed to gobble up all 3 large pies. Then, we walked back to the cathedral for our "on common ground" tour. During the tour we were able to see how the front panel sculptures, over the main doorway to the cathedral, showed people from around the world gathering together holding palms. Just as Jesus was welcomed by the crowd with palm branches, this symbolizes welcoming all people to the cathedral. For example, there was the 'Shen tou' vases to symbolize the Japanese, the gold cabinets to represent the Buddhist religion, and the 7 different chapels given to each separate country. Also, the different bays which depicted images from the Old Testament to the New Testament and then to the more modern images. We also noted how the sacred number 7 kept occurring through the the church. For example, there were 7 chapels, 7 candles at the alter, 7 bays, and 7 points on the star on the stingless window in the back of the cathedral. Then, we went to a workshop where we created our own symbol, taking what we gleaned from our tour. When you see them ask them what their creation means...

Father Josh created a scene including the Celtic cross a man and the Loch Ness monster
Samantha created an image of herself smiling
Malcolm made the solar system in the universe
Kyle made a man riding a turtleAbby created a pencil and a piece of paper
Adeline made a colorful angel
Michaela created her hand with contrasting colored feathers and a red origami crane
Pastor Chris made a rainbow scene with a cross draped in rainbow fabric
Rachel made a book mark with meaningful initials
JoAnn, Pastor Chris' sister made a colorful letter A for accessibility
Daniel created a button picture with yellow and red combining to made 1 orange button
and last but not least, Mr. Matt made a heart with blue and red tissue paper coming together to make purple.

Following the workshop, we headed to Time Square where we saw Pastor Chris's station from when she was a police officer and we walked her beat! As we were walking to St. Mary's church we were able to cross off another task on our bucket list. We saw the naked cowboy in Time Square and took a picture with him then gave him a Flat Jesus which he taped to his guitar. Then, we walked to St. Mary the Virgin church, also known as Smoky Mary's, for evening prayer. It was very interesting for all of us to see a different form of service than we are used to. Finally, we went to Central Park, played, and climbed on the rocks and sang, "Seek Ye First" to cross off another item on our Rite 13 Bucket List. We all went to a deli where we all tried something new and shared a couple slices of New York's famous strawberry cheesecake. Then, we ended the day and headed back to camp for our last night in New York City.