It was a gradual shifting. Somewhere during our time in the mountains of the Los Padres National Forest, surrounded by pine trees, dry dirt and fundamentalist Christians, I felt an itching in my consciousness. In my soul. It began as a small itch, but over the months became an all-consuming fire.

I had become interested in peace, justice, alternative thinking, even as I guided the evangelical ministry I had started, working with youth performing dramatic mime choreographed to religious themes. The kids I worked with were mostly from conservative families, both politically and theologically. The community was small.

We included patriotic pieces in our repertoire of performances, and the itch became a mauling in my soul. On the outside I directed the choreography to “God Bless the U.S.A.” On the inside I questioned and mulled and tormented.

During the George W. Bush re-election, with the ongoing illegal war in Iraq, my inside and outside coalesced. Around the same time, during my hiatus from church and my search for what it meant to be a true Christ follower, I came across Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) on the Internet. I cried. Could it be real that people understood Jesus in such a way as to risk their lives to confront oppression and tyranny without violence? To stand with the most marginalized in the most dangerous places?

To shred the nationalistic cloak and reach out as a citizen of the world, a citizen of the kingdom of God? I reconnected with my yearnings for God, the God I already knew in my soul but whose face and calling were changing. I was irrevocably ruined.

The sharp contrast between the Jesus I found in Scripture—who said, “love your enemy,” “do good to those who harm you,” “blessed are the merciful”—with the American Jesus who loves war and believes in empire and status quo-keeping could no longer be held together in my psyche. I came out of the closet. I expressed publicly my displeasure with the war and that I would not be voting for Bush.

This led to my being expelled from the ministry I had founded, which was OK, as I had planned to step down. I knew I could not take this group of youth where I was headed. But still, it felt weird to be told I was backsliding, that I could no longer be trusted in a position of leadership with their kids, by people I had come to know as friends.

My soul had become expansive. I researched more intently for some kind of foundational grounding. The thought of belonging to a church, a group of people who also sought peace, reconciliation, justice and mercy no longer seemed impossible. My research introduced me to Mennonite theology and ultimately to Eastern Mennonite University’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, which prompted our move to Harrisonburg, Va., eight years ago.

I learned that the kingdom of God is now and is coming. It is more a worldview shift, a different paradigm, a new lens than it is an actual place. Yet it is that, too. I learned that love is real and expansive. The essence of being Christian is not about morality or being right. Love connects us to each other no matter our nationality, culture, tribe, creed, race, gender or sexual identity because we all contain the same DNA of God.

This past Veteran’s Day, I gave the chapel message at my kids’ Mennonite school about this very thing. I approached this holiday in a spirit of honoring veterans by imagining a future without war and dedicated it to those who have lost their lives or their souls in combat or who have taken their own lives after returning home, as a result of the trauma they experienced. Every day, 22 veterans take their own lives. That’s a suicide every 65 minutes. Something essential about being human is not compatible with war.

I also dedicated it to CPT, which I credit with part of my spiritual formation and history. For CPT members who have also lost their lives and risk them every day to stand with courage and conviction without a gun, with love and with solidarity for the “enemy.”

Valerie Serrels is a member of Community Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg, Va.