The never-ending camp

If you have been a faithful blog reader since I began, you know that I always do a rearview post the last day of each month. It is a lame attempt to remember what happened over the course of 30 days.

RIGHT NOW, however, I have no creativity left and cannot think of anything but FRIDAY. Why not? Here are today’s horrorific highlights:

1. Took the kids to the lake. There was an incident involving a child (not one of ours) and soon we had an ambulance and fire truck and state police helicopter on the scene. Yep.

2. I think Noah has a camp girlfriend.

3. Breakfast was a biscuit with sausage gravy and dinner was country fried steak with the same gravy. If you can fry it, we are eating it.

4. After finally convincing the girls they needed to bathe, all the showers stopped while we were attempting to complete the task. Yes, all the toilets are now stopped up too.

5. We decided to switch some beds around so I could be closer to the floor because some of the girls need to go to the bathroom during the night and I was having to climb up and down multiple times. I was glad to be out of the cramped upper bunk, until THE ENTIRE bed frame broke and I was on the bottom. No kidding.

The one thing I am pleased about is that I ran into an old friend here named Melissa. She and I were in each other’s weddings, but miles and families have made it hard to stay close. We have had long talks and remembered funny things and just hung out.

I guess I kind of have a camp girlfriend too.

Camp Day 2

Ok, today was slightly better. The girls are getting into routine and feeling less homesick. The spiders and I have decided to give each other space, so we are cohabiting in peace. We had Salisbury steak for lunch and riblets for dinner (funny, huh?) and there is no shortage of dessert items. Tomorrow we head to Crystal Lake for a water slide and picnic.

I wish I could say the teaching was better, and let me preface my comments by saying that there are wonderful people here who truly love kids and want them to grow and learn.

BUT….

Today I heard that “chapel was the most important part of the day because it’s where we get to spend time with God.” I also heard, “When we sing our songs we are worshipping.” Both comments made me nuts.

I refuse to be party to raising another generation of people who think that the church is a building and that worship is going to that building and singing. It drives me crazy when I drive by churches with signs that say, “Worship service 9:30 am” as if God is hanging around in the empty pews waiting for us to arrive on Sunday.

God was on our walk to the bonfire tonight. God was in the line for the dining hall. God is even in the crappola bathrooms. When Jesus walked on earth, He chose to hang around with some questionable characters, and I suspect that’s where God still is, waiting for us to join in and help Him restore the world. THAT is an act of worship.

In the 1960s, Hans Hoekendijk declared:

“The church cannot be more than a sign. She points away from herself to the Kingdom; she lets herself be used for and through the Kingdom in the oikoumene [the whole inhabited earth]. There is nothing that the church can demand for herself and can possess for herself (not an ecclesiology either). God has placed her in a living relationship to the Kingdom and to the oikoumene. The church exists only in actu, in the execution of the apostolate, i.e., in the proclamation of the gospel of the Kingdom to the world.”

Some may find that extreme, but I suspect that the pendulum has swung so far the other way, that a little dose of the extreme might be a good thing.

Of course, we may not have time to think through these things (let alone BE them). We just may be too busy in church.

Ghost stories et al

Yesterday I promised you ghost stories from camp. Well, no campfires yet, but some other things are actually more scary.

First, the bathrooms. I have been to Tibet, where I had nothing but a hole in the ground to go in, and I am actually wondering if that wouldn’t be better than what I am experiencing. My husband as my witness, I am no weenie – I can live in a lot of chaos and discomfort – but these bathrooms are a TRIP. I’d post a picture, but remember the fate of my camera??

Secondly, the cabins. When you lay your head upon your pillow tonight, think of me on the top bunk in an A frame cabin on a mattress meant for an 8 year old. Besides the mold, the spiders have claimed complete ownership and my face is about 2 feet from the wood ceiling and all their webs. I have to shimmy onto my bunk, because there is NO WAY I can sit up. I have eleven first and second grade girls in my charge, all with a variety of temperaments and levels of homesickness.

Lastly, the theology. THEOS = God, LOGOS = words. Words about God or the study of God. My three kids and three of their friends are here with me. Last night, I met with them briefly to straighten out the some of the questionable ideas that they learned in chapel and during the “missionary moment.” Why would we teach children that deciding to be a Christian is primarily about “getting to go to heaven”??? I did not choose to cooperate with God to avoid death, I did it to embrace life, and I believe that my eternal life has already begun. Forget embodying the Gospel, just make sure you stay out of hell!! (ok, it wasn’t that bad, but I imagined it was).

One day down, four to go. I wonder when I will start to ask questions – out loud. Any wagers?

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's off to camp I go

Quite unexpectedly, I have found myself going to be a counselor at a Children's Camp this week - yes, the whole week, and, yes, my children are campers. Being SUCH a kid person, this ought to be either a blast or the last time they ask me.

I will try to blog daily, but I'm not even sure there is an Internet signal where I am going, so if the blog falls silent until Friday afternoon - no need to call the National Guard.

Oh, but if I can acquire a signal, I'm sure there will be a good ghost story or two to share. I promise.

The church is the new post office

Another shooting at a church. Hmmm…

As of today, the police do not yet have a motive for why a 58 year old man, with a rifle in his hand, would enter a church during a children’s program and kill at least two people and injure several others.

It’s been nuts lately with reports of church shootings. School shootings we can understand, right? At least we understand the concept of bullies and victims and somebody losing it in a school environment – no matter how sad and scathing it is every time it happens – we kind of get it.

But church shootings?

As I have opportunity to talk with people, I learn that there are a lot of people ticked off at the church. They’re not ticked enough to walk in with a gun, but they are ticked enough to never walk in again. The reasons vary, but the results are the same, and the church loses more and more members and credibility.

Why do you think this is?

And the Weekend Word winner is...

Whew! It was exhausting reading all these entries. I sure hope that not so many people participate next week. The winner, despite my questions about Tom Cruise, is:

Anonymous: "He needed no philter to woo me. As someone once said, he had me at hello."

Thanks for playing. Next week I'll use a philter on my readers. One sniff, and you'll be sentence making machines.

Weekend Word 12

I don't know about you, but I've had one heck of a week. Talk about tripping! I have managed to offend people I care about with my blog, rattle off an impulsive email that dinged my credibility, stood on the ledge of self-doubt to the point where I needed to be coaxed off before I took a potentially damaging dive and just felt generally out of control. I am tempted to make the Weekend Word "menstruation" but I suspect we all know what that means already.

So, as I sit on the curb with no pride or shame left - no friends, no hope - (can you tell I spent time in the theatre?) and multiple apologies scheduled for next week, I have picked an easy word, or perhaps one I long for.

Grab your thinking caps, get out the rod and reel, mourn Estelle Getty and click on the word below. After uttering it to your neighbors, use it in a winning sentence and type it in the comments section below.

philter

Come dire che amate?

This crazy book

“Every search begins with beginner’s luck. And every search ends with the victor being severely tested.”

- Paolo Coelho

SO

SO, it may be time for me to find a rock and crawl underneath it. You know, when in doubt, avoid.

SO, I got a request from my agent yesterday that put me in a tailspin. The gory details would interest you, I’m sure, but suffice it to say that she had to talk me off the ledge. I am crazy about her, and she asked a perfectly legitimate question, but you try making sense of your innermost thoughts and feelings – simply brutal.

SO, while I am battling those inner writing demons that we’ve discussed before, I get an email that is not very nice from someone else. I promptly hit the reply button, without counting to ten, and needless to say I found myself sending TWO emails – the second apologizing for the first.

SO, I decide to take a deep breath and stop being dramatic. I don’t want to be my agent’s project, I want to be her client – and I want to be a low maintenance one – not one that she is speeding to bridges to repeatedly rescue with words of affirmation. I decide to see the issue clearly. Hmmmm. This may take some time.

SO, I admit the impossibility of how things feel versus how they really are and I recognize that my impulsivity is the best/worst thing about me. You know, that aspect of one’s personality that in some situations is stellar, and in others, humiliating? Impulsivity is the thing that compels me to feed strangers and listen to the lonely and show grace to the fallen without hesitation. Impulsivity is also the thing that produces spontaneous tears in public arenas, paralyzing moments of self-doubt and less-than-encouraging email replies.

SO, where’s that rock?

“SO, if you're serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don't shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that's where the action is. See things from his perspective.” Colossians 3:1-2 (The Message).

SO, maybe I should stand on it, not hide underneath.