Revenge of Camp Stories: Sunday, July 18.

Against all odds, I managed to keep a fairly detailed journal of my two weeks at Wisconsin Christian Youth Camp.  I may or may not get it posted online over the next two weeks (you may recall the early demise of my post-UK-travel journal blog), but I am going to give it a stab. It will be a challenge for me on several fronts, so bear with me.

Here's how it begins:

When I wake, Toto's "Africa" is ringing through my head, probably because Mitch and I were singing it together in the cabin last night.  She's been taking guitar lessons and is sounding really good.  Mitch drove me the 4+ hours out from Chicago yesterday, but she can't stay for camp.  In fact, she's heading home as soon as she can get her stuff to the car.  I'm sad to see her go, but I know we'll connect again at the end of this trip.

Jeff, the director of this two-week camp session, invites me to join the rest of the staff (or rather, the select few who have already showed up) for lunch at Culver's.  On the way to the tiny town of Black River Falls, I tell him about my recent interest in observing intentional communities in action.  Church camp was my first experience with intentional community, I say.  I remember, as a kid, thinking how weird it was that we put all this effort into creating this near-utopian setting, only to walk away from it right when it's getting good.  I used to fantasize about some disaster that would prevent us all from going home again, and how we could all just stay in the woods together indefinitely, foraging for food and singing 'round the campfire every night.

"What we create here is very exclusive," Jeff weighs in, choosing his words carefully.  Unfortunately I haven't brought my notebook, so I don't get them down, but the gist is that while we do a fair job of building the Kingdom of Heaven at camp, the other part of our work is to share it with the world.  He draws a parallel to attending church services, where we are revived and prepared to return to our tasks in the world.  I appreciate his thoughtful perspective.  I also appreciate that he did not once resort to the dismissive phrase "mountaintop experience," which I have heard used to describe camp ever since I was a teen myself.

After lunch, we return to camp, and to last-minute preparation before the campers begin to arrive mid-afternoon.  I take a luxuriously unhurried nap on the screened back porch of my cabin, "Merry Breezes," soothed by the liquid white noise of the nearby creek.  The peace and free time are delicious.  I am torn between reluctance for it to end and electrification at the coming mayhem.

I find myself hampered by diffidence once the campers begin to arrive.  It's been a year, and names and identities are hazy at best.  I feel I should remember who is expecting a hug, who is wary of me due to past confrontation, who I've met before and who is new to me.  Of course it doesn't matter.  Today of all days, no one will mind if I invite myself into their little conversational clusters.  But I find some errand or other to keep me criss-crossing the tree-spattered hilltop that is the center of camp, rather than settling into greetings and introductions, until I see staff members I recognize.  I admit the staff are my clique.  It's a strength and a weakness; my allegiance to them is essential, but my attention should be more with the campers.  They are why we're all here.

I help with registration, settle campers into my cabin, then shoo them off to a group activity and go attend the initial staff meeting.  There I learn to my chagrin that the clunky old staff PC has been eliminated.  "A lot of bad stuff came over on Facebook and Myspace," says the camp caretaker by way of explanation.  This takes some mental readjusting; I am used to at least being able to check my e-mail a couple of times during the session. There is wireless, but I'd have to track someone with a laptop down in order to use it.  Oh well.  I've told everyone I'll be offline anyway; might as well really be offline.

Jeff's comments to the staff are constructive and practical.  Camp is the opposite of Vegas, he tells us: "What happens at camp does not stay at camp."  This is both an encouragement (campers are influenced in positive ways and take that home with them) and a caution (poor choices by staff can result in stories being told back home, and blown out of proportion in the process).  He reminds us of our calling to serve rather than to be served ("If you see something that needs to be done, do it"), and speaks about structure and punctuality.  He asks us to monitor our own levels of patience and frustration in difficult situations: "If you have a problem with somebody, you need to communicate to them, not about them."  And he asks us to keep a larger perspective: "God is going to put us in situations to touch these kids' lives.  This isn't just camp.  This is Kingdom."

There are more mundane items to be discussed: water conservation, camper supervision, prank suppression, dress code (no bare shoulders or midriffs, all shorts longer than the wearer's fingertips).  The head counselors cover these topics; they're long-standing policies, merely review for nearly everyone present.  The camp's caretaker talks about first aid kits, the proper way to deal with ticks, and the importance of keeping food out of the cabins (nearly all are porous enough to admit small rodents).

That night everyone gathers for our first of 13 devotionals.  On this night, because it's Sunday, we take communion together.  Plates of flatbread and paper cups of grape juice are set up around a rough-hewn cross laid on a long table.  Shane, the head teacher, invites us all to partake: "Communion means community: common-union.  When you take communion, you don't get in your private phone booth and talk to God."  Most of us here come from a church tradition in which trays of crackers and juice are passed along the pews in silence, while everyone, eyes lowered, ostensibly meditates on the suffering of Christ.  So it's beautiful to hear it described this way, and to see the campers and staff go up to the table in clusters and stand, quiet together or talking in low voices, sharing the feast.