At least once a night here I get up, walk to the bathhouse, admire the moonlit campground, and promptly return to bed and sleep. This night, though, my awakeitude is prolonged by the progress of dinner (cheap mini oven pizza) through my digestive tract. I remember this meal having similar effects in previous years; those things seem to have just the wrong combination of ingredients for me. The one I ate Sunday night seemed to cause me little trouble (although in retrospect it may well have been related to Monday morning's extreme grogginess), but this one causes acute discomfort. I toss, turn, and vow to fast from wheat today to give my gut a rest.
(My mom has developed a severe, and I mean really severe, reaction to gluten. While I don't currently share this predicament, I've noticed I'm generally more alert and energetic when I don't eat wheat, which indicates that it does tax my digestive system to some degree. I'll still eat it when someone else is cooking, but in my own home I'm basically wheat-free. At camp, obviously, I'm not.)
Easier said than done. I must pass up most of breakfast, but at least there are scrambled eggs. Lunch is spaghetti, breadsticks, and cookies: wheaty wheat with a side of wheat. I take a helping of cooked peas and, at one cook's laughing suggestion, top them with parmesan. It's actually not bad. I'm grateful for the salad bar, which is uninspiring but consistent, and for my snack stash in the staff fridge. Conveniently, my appetite still hasn't fully returned, so I top it off with a kid-sized milk carton and carry on.
Classes continue to go well. My Bible students make me laugh a lot, and they're eager to talk about nearly any topic you put in front of them. In World Travel class today, guest speaker Amanda talks about her travels in Costa Rica; I talk about packing, a topic near and dear to my heart, and show-and-tell some of my favorite travel gadgets (travel pillow, backpacker's towel, compression bag).
Before lunch, a counselor approaches me to share her concern for a camper who is leaving tomorrow. (Most campers stay for both weeks of the session; a handful are leaving at the end of the week, and we expect a few more to arrive.) The girl in question has a strong and well-educated Catholic background, and has stood alone on some controversial issues discussed in this counselor's class. The counselor is concerned about the girl leaving camp with unanswered questions, which appears to me to be the best possible outcome from a first encounter with a church that's very different from your own. I try to ask leading questions, rather than just point out what I see as dangerous flaws in her reasoning. She says she wants the camper to "have her own faith" (as distinct from her Catholic parents'), but clearly means she wants the camper to have a faith that looks a lot like her own. She mentions trying to get this camper to understand that salvation doesn't happen without good works, a theologically sticky standpoint. And she is disappointed in how "progressive" her students are, saying that they refuse to pass judgment on others' moral choices. Hmm.
I bite my tongue a lot, hear her out, and reassure her that the camper is in God's hands. I'm grateful she's willing to share this, but it's a frustrating conversation for me because it underlines the doctrinal divide between my beliefs and those of so many here. I grew up in the Church of Christ, the denomination sponsoring this camp, but several years ago I left it to attend a community church, finding a more ecumenical and, yes, more progressive approach to be better aligned with my understanding of God's grace. Key members of the staff are aware of my membership, so I'm not really sneaking in undercover here, but I have to wonder: if this counselor knew what I believe, would she even want me here? Do I even belong here anymore?
It's a painful question, but the fact is, there's a lot being taught here that I just can't agree with. I feel cowardly sitting by and doing nothing to counteract it. But I don't know how, or what to say. How am I to speak up to disagree here, in this denomination that taught me my place in the church is to be silent (and if I have a problem, I should ask my husband about it)? I don't even know whether those whose words I've been troubled by are really speaking for everyone. I know I haven't heard many voices to the contrary this year (some who might have provided balance are absent, and others I just haven't heard much from, so far). I don't think the bias has always been this extreme, but I can't honestly tell how much of the mismatch I'm feeling is because camp has changed, and how much is because I have.
Yet these people are truly loving, truly understand what it is to serve, and I am called to love and serve them, the body of Christ, warts and all. But I don't want to be at cross purposes with them. Do I belong elsewhere? Or are these just differences of opinion I'd find in any gathering of believers?
I stew about these matters for the rest of the day, though it doesn't prevent me from thoroughly enjoying, in consecutive order: a "boat race" down the crick (boats are constructed by campers from recycled and craft materials); a lovely shower, after which I promptly get sweaty again; several games of washers; the remainder of Whompy's manuscript; and a nice catching-up chat with head teacher Shane on the hike to the campfire site known as "Serenity." (Shane would be a good person to talk to about my questions, but I don't want to discuss them in earshot of the campers who are close on our heels, and am at this point still not even sure how best to communicate my unease.)
At Serenity (No fireflies, sorry!) we eat dinner cooked outdoors, and I decide I'm done fasting from wheat so I can eat my bratwurst on a bun. Afterward, Roger the Cowboy gives us his annual concert, standing between the campfire and the edge of the ridge, miles of treetops spread out behind him. Roger's songs are plain, sweet, and twang-less, accompanied by acoustic guitar strummin'. He covers songs like "Grandma's Feather Bed," "I Walk the Line," "Red River Valley" and "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys," and plays several numbers of his own. It's a pretty low-key show, but everyone loves it.
By the time he's done, it's nearly dark and time for devo. There's no speaker tonight either, but the contrast between last night's singing and tonight's is stunning. Up here in the open air, we stand in a tight cluster beside, rather than around, the campfire; the energy is high and the tempo does not falter, not even three verses into good ol' number 728b.
Monday, August 09, 2010
Revenge of Camp Stories: Thursday, July 22.
The real downside to keeping an account of an action-packed adventure like this is having to choose between writing/reflection and rest. Today, due to rain, our outdoor activity time is replaced by an extended rest period (the announcement of which was met with loud cheers from pretty much everybody). Even with the extra time, I'm in a rush to get caught up so I can put the pen down. Between this project and the draft of Whompy's novel that I've been reading, I may not finish any of the books I brought on this trip. (On the plane I began Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste. It's an examination of the appeal of Celine Dion, written by a music critic who can't stand Celine Dion but is determined to figure out why she's so popular. I'm fascinated and itching to get back to it.)
It was raining when we woke up this morning, and has rarely stopped since. I'm well prepared with hiking boots, rain jacket, and nylon pants, but most others are not. Both my classes meet outdoors, so we have to scramble for indoor meeting places. It's an uncomfortable but interesting change of pace.
The rain is finally done by the time rest period ends. Campers stretch and proclaim how rested they feel. Awakened mid-REM cycle, I do not. I take Whompy's book out to read during free/swim time, but as so often happens here, interesting people keep sitting next to me and saying interesting things. Kate, daughter of a kitchen staffer who is perhaps 9 years old, provides us with entertainment and pestering by turns -- "us" being whoever happens to join me on the bench swing. Mostly it's Alex, a very patient camper with a homemade didjeridoo that baffles Kate, and Gavin and Joe, two male counselors who egg Kate on to ever-greater feats of feistiness. Kate challenges a younger female counselor to a fight, then hops around with her fists up, unsure how to proceed. Finally she kicks the counselor in the shins and runs away. Later she plays us a song on the guitar (she's quite good), then shouts furiously at an apparently random camper (male, very tall and completely confused) to come and fight her. It's absurd and, I have to admit, very entertaining.
I chat with Alex, Joe and Gavin, and also Roger the Cowboy. Roger is the real deal, no rhinestones. "This is the year of the fence," he tells me wryly, when I ask him what he's been up to. Fencing an open corner of his pastureland has turned out to be a sizeable project. We talk about property taxes and the purifying properties of wood charcoal on the digestive system. I get absolutely no reading done, but I wouldn't trade this.
The evening's activity is Capture the Flag, a well-loved camp tradition. I'm neither very speedy nor very strategic, and have honestly never cared for the game. I stand around talking to Whompy about his novel through the first round, defend the flag through the second, and bail completely on the third. By this point so many other people are tired of it that it's a little tough to tell if there's even still an official game on.
All the campfire sites are still waterlogged, so devo is held in the Lodge, an ancient log structure with a screened porch overlooking the creek. It's muggy and stuffy with a hundred people in there, warm and dimly candle-lit. Perhaps as a result of this, the songs draaaag. (This is a Church of Christ camp, which means that all devo songs are sung a capella. Also, there aren't songleaders so much as song-starters, so it's easy for tempo to decline over the course of a song. But it hasn't been too bad until now.) Every song slows to a plod, drained of vitality by limited oxygen and the mysterious allergy WCYC has to syncopation.
I can't take it. I retreat to the bathhouse, more for the walk than for the toilet. "Well, I hope you like it," I remark to God en route. Of course I know he does. I wish I could hear what he hears.
I return quickly so I don't miss the speaker, hoping for evidence to support my theory that we're done with the sin-oriented devos of Monday and Tuesday. But there is no speaker. Hmph.
It was raining when we woke up this morning, and has rarely stopped since. I'm well prepared with hiking boots, rain jacket, and nylon pants, but most others are not. Both my classes meet outdoors, so we have to scramble for indoor meeting places. It's an uncomfortable but interesting change of pace.
The rain is finally done by the time rest period ends. Campers stretch and proclaim how rested they feel. Awakened mid-REM cycle, I do not. I take Whompy's book out to read during free/swim time, but as so often happens here, interesting people keep sitting next to me and saying interesting things. Kate, daughter of a kitchen staffer who is perhaps 9 years old, provides us with entertainment and pestering by turns -- "us" being whoever happens to join me on the bench swing. Mostly it's Alex, a very patient camper with a homemade didjeridoo that baffles Kate, and Gavin and Joe, two male counselors who egg Kate on to ever-greater feats of feistiness. Kate challenges a younger female counselor to a fight, then hops around with her fists up, unsure how to proceed. Finally she kicks the counselor in the shins and runs away. Later she plays us a song on the guitar (she's quite good), then shouts furiously at an apparently random camper (male, very tall and completely confused) to come and fight her. It's absurd and, I have to admit, very entertaining.
I chat with Alex, Joe and Gavin, and also Roger the Cowboy. Roger is the real deal, no rhinestones. "This is the year of the fence," he tells me wryly, when I ask him what he's been up to. Fencing an open corner of his pastureland has turned out to be a sizeable project. We talk about property taxes and the purifying properties of wood charcoal on the digestive system. I get absolutely no reading done, but I wouldn't trade this.
The evening's activity is Capture the Flag, a well-loved camp tradition. I'm neither very speedy nor very strategic, and have honestly never cared for the game. I stand around talking to Whompy about his novel through the first round, defend the flag through the second, and bail completely on the third. By this point so many other people are tired of it that it's a little tough to tell if there's even still an official game on.
All the campfire sites are still waterlogged, so devo is held in the Lodge, an ancient log structure with a screened porch overlooking the creek. It's muggy and stuffy with a hundred people in there, warm and dimly candle-lit. Perhaps as a result of this, the songs draaaag. (This is a Church of Christ camp, which means that all devo songs are sung a capella. Also, there aren't songleaders so much as song-starters, so it's easy for tempo to decline over the course of a song. But it hasn't been too bad until now.) Every song slows to a plod, drained of vitality by limited oxygen and the mysterious allergy WCYC has to syncopation.
I can't take it. I retreat to the bathhouse, more for the walk than for the toilet. "Well, I hope you like it," I remark to God en route. Of course I know he does. I wish I could hear what he hears.
I return quickly so I don't miss the speaker, hoping for evidence to support my theory that we're done with the sin-oriented devos of Monday and Tuesday. But there is no speaker. Hmph.
Saturday, August 07, 2010
Revenge of Camp Stories: Wednesday, July 21.
The day goes quickly, the first so far to really seem like routine. Our guest speaker in the World Travel class is Whompy; he holds the girls' interest with stories of his cross-country bike trek from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. He emphasizes that anyone can do this, which I appreciate; I think it may be hard for some of these campers to imagine themselves capable of such an adventure.
I spend most of rest period writing the previous entry. I feel better having pummeled my unease into words. I have begun to wonder who I should talk to about it, if anyone, but I haven't come to any conclusions yet.
The schedule has been getting tighter here and there, and rules are slowly being amped up, nudging us in uncomfortable ways. At meals now, we have to sit with our teams, and crickin' today is split up into separate times for guys and girls (as it is at the camp sessions for younger kids). During these times, everyone now has to go down to the water, even if s/he doesn't want to get in. The reason given for these changes is "honoring camp tradition." There is grumbling in my cabin, but the veteran campers correctly guess it to be an object lesson, so they complain less than I expected.
None of this is onerous, but everyone's relieved when that night at devo, Jeff concludes the exercise and explains its purpose. Parallels are drawn with the elaborate religious traditions of Israel at the time of Christ. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus gets called out a lot for being a religious teacher who breaks some of the finer points of the Law: healing the sick on the Sabbath, touching those deemed unclean, etc. I admit I am not paying super close attention to the lesson this evening, so I don't catch it all, but it seems to me the previous two devo talks have been part of this theme. I fervently hope that from here on out we'll be able to talk about what Christians should be doing, rather than focusing on the rules they shouldn't break.
Earlier, outdoor activity leaders Ed and Jon hit it out of the park with a new game they called "Snipe Hunt." Willing staff and a few select campers dress up in wacky costumes and hide in the woods, and the campers go out in cabin-based teams to find them and bring them back. Lured by the promise of a Klondike bar, I volunteer to be a Snipe. I forego the facepaint, but deck myself in foam flowers with pipecleaner stems and find a shrub to hunker down behind. When I'm spotted by a team of girls, I flee... straight into the arms of another team, resulting in a tug-of-war in which the role of the rope is played by me. I am eventually returned to the scorekeeper somewhat chafed, but in one piece. The event is hugely popular, and the resulting tales of risk, struggle, and triumph are passed around for days afterward.
I spend most of rest period writing the previous entry. I feel better having pummeled my unease into words. I have begun to wonder who I should talk to about it, if anyone, but I haven't come to any conclusions yet.
The schedule has been getting tighter here and there, and rules are slowly being amped up, nudging us in uncomfortable ways. At meals now, we have to sit with our teams, and crickin' today is split up into separate times for guys and girls (as it is at the camp sessions for younger kids). During these times, everyone now has to go down to the water, even if s/he doesn't want to get in. The reason given for these changes is "honoring camp tradition." There is grumbling in my cabin, but the veteran campers correctly guess it to be an object lesson, so they complain less than I expected.
None of this is onerous, but everyone's relieved when that night at devo, Jeff concludes the exercise and explains its purpose. Parallels are drawn with the elaborate religious traditions of Israel at the time of Christ. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus gets called out a lot for being a religious teacher who breaks some of the finer points of the Law: healing the sick on the Sabbath, touching those deemed unclean, etc. I admit I am not paying super close attention to the lesson this evening, so I don't catch it all, but it seems to me the previous two devo talks have been part of this theme. I fervently hope that from here on out we'll be able to talk about what Christians should be doing, rather than focusing on the rules they shouldn't break.
Earlier, outdoor activity leaders Ed and Jon hit it out of the park with a new game they called "Snipe Hunt." Willing staff and a few select campers dress up in wacky costumes and hide in the woods, and the campers go out in cabin-based teams to find them and bring them back. Lured by the promise of a Klondike bar, I volunteer to be a Snipe. I forego the facepaint, but deck myself in foam flowers with pipecleaner stems and find a shrub to hunker down behind. When I'm spotted by a team of girls, I flee... straight into the arms of another team, resulting in a tug-of-war in which the role of the rope is played by me. I am eventually returned to the scorekeeper somewhat chafed, but in one piece. The event is hugely popular, and the resulting tales of risk, struggle, and triumph are passed around for days afterward.
Friday, August 06, 2010
Revenge of Camp Stories: Tuesday, July 20.
I sleep well, waking only once for a brief visit to the bathhouse. The darkened campground is theatrically draped in mist, which I find still lingering after the sun comes up. The weather is delightfully cool, and I feel sooo much better this morning.
The hours pass quickly, with Rabbi's Meeting (a class for Bible teachers to discuss the day's text), my Bible class, the daily staff meeting, my free period (used for class prep), and then the World Travel class. Bible class is always discussion-based, and this week's group is lively and ready to engage. No one has to be prodded to speak; the challenge is keeping on track, rather than getting discussion going. It seems like most of my previous classes have involved an awful lot of shrugs and blank stares, so this is a lovely change of pace.
My World Travel class is made up of six polite young ladies (one addition since yesterday) and two staff members sitting in. I am nervous and talk too much -- they're nearly all experienced travelers and could probably share stories for days. But it's okay. I have four more days to get it right.
The "crick" is still high and muddy from recent rains, but the level has dropped enough to allow a return to the favored swimming spots at "the falls." (Not the precipitous drops down a cliff face that the word suggests: the tallest of them is between three and four feet, and the others look more like rapids, though the lowest one drops off into a deep pool created a century ago by dynamite.) "Crickin'" is a central part of camp life, and yet I feel no real desire to get in at this point. Maybe it's because the weather is cool, and maybe because I'm feeling the absence of dear friends who would, any other year, be part of this fun. But the collective movement draws me down to the water's edge anyway. I perch on a flood-soaked, mossy log, dampen my sandaled feet, and watch.
The falls are caramel-colored, the deep waters brown as Guinness. There is much shrieking and splashing, staggering and shoving, in the deeper part of the swimming hole. A couple of inner tubes float by, skip over the rapids, then float by again. Girls stand in the shallows and shave their legs; boys wade past, politely trying not to splash me as I write. Some give me a curious look, but only one stops to ask what I'm doing. "Oh, uh, I'm keeping a camp journal," I say, instantly self-conscious.
"What's happened so far?" he asks.
I stammer and flip back through the pages. "Uh... you were there for most of it?" I say. He laughs and moves on.
Later, I opt out of the evening's activity, a game in which cabins attempt to dunk each other in waist-deep water. I don't want to deal with contact lenses, fast-moving water, or one-on-one conflict. This year there is no giant red ball to provide a non-combative goal for the exercise. I am tougher than I look, especially when hyped up on adrenaline, and I know I could hold my own. But I have a strong desire to not participate in this, and I go with it, claiming journalistic immunity by taking photos for participants. And I seize a rare opportunity to talk with my good friend Whompy and quiz him about his tandem bike tour with his mysterious girlfriend. (Actually, it's not so much that she's mysterious, as it is that I haven't heard about her before now, considering how long they've been dating.)
The evening's devo involves the testimony of a minister whose life has been changed irrevocably by self-destructive choices. It's heartfelt, and heartbreaking, but it forces me to once again confront the issue I wrestled with yesterday. Thus far, the apparent focus of this year's spiritual instruction around the campfire has been on not sinning. Is this really as far as our faith goes? Are we more concerned with protecting our youth from consequences than we are with their relationship with the Divine? Do we really believe that not breaking the rules makes you a good person?
I am so discontented with this being given the spotlight. It was the same when I was a camper (elsewhere): the big intense firelit talks about sexual purity, not hanging out with bad influences, not drinking/smoking/partying. It was all about not causing trouble. I understand that those who have dealt with the heavy consequences of their choices want to spare the next generation from a similar fate. But is this really what we need to be emphasizing most? (And if we're going to talk about sins, are partying, drugs/alcohol, and premarital sex really the biggest dangers we can think of to warn our teenagers against?)
Yes, we're studying scripture in our daytime classes. We're singing and worshipping together at devo, too. Those are all constructive things. But it seems to me we've brought the mentality of the old-school tent-revival altar call with us into our present-day retreats, and I question its ultimate value in helping us learn to love and serve God better.
As a teen who was pretty good at following rules, I never knew exactly where I fit in with this sin-sational approach. Was it even for me? Like, should I scrape together some confession about having a bad attitude, and offer it up beside dramatic tales of drug abuse and back-seat liaisons? Maybe I should go out and commit some interesting sins so I could relate? Or should I just be conscious that this event, like so many youth group activities, was tailored more to the needs of other people than to mine? I spent so much time wondering where I fit into all of this, when, with a different kind of spiritual instruction, I could have been moving forward. I was eager to move forward. I am angry about this, on behalf of my teenage self, and on behalf of these teens.
So this is the frustration that I bring to the topic. And other factors, I know, affect my ability to see it clearly. I mean I am very self-centered, if the above paragraph didn't clue you in to that, and also I am very good at lying to myself. I have to consider the possibility that I, too, have something specific and obvious to confess and repent of, and I am using this internal conflict to mask it from myself.
The hours pass quickly, with Rabbi's Meeting (a class for Bible teachers to discuss the day's text), my Bible class, the daily staff meeting, my free period (used for class prep), and then the World Travel class. Bible class is always discussion-based, and this week's group is lively and ready to engage. No one has to be prodded to speak; the challenge is keeping on track, rather than getting discussion going. It seems like most of my previous classes have involved an awful lot of shrugs and blank stares, so this is a lovely change of pace.
My World Travel class is made up of six polite young ladies (one addition since yesterday) and two staff members sitting in. I am nervous and talk too much -- they're nearly all experienced travelers and could probably share stories for days. But it's okay. I have four more days to get it right.
The "crick" is still high and muddy from recent rains, but the level has dropped enough to allow a return to the favored swimming spots at "the falls." (Not the precipitous drops down a cliff face that the word suggests: the tallest of them is between three and four feet, and the others look more like rapids, though the lowest one drops off into a deep pool created a century ago by dynamite.) "Crickin'" is a central part of camp life, and yet I feel no real desire to get in at this point. Maybe it's because the weather is cool, and maybe because I'm feeling the absence of dear friends who would, any other year, be part of this fun. But the collective movement draws me down to the water's edge anyway. I perch on a flood-soaked, mossy log, dampen my sandaled feet, and watch.
The falls are caramel-colored, the deep waters brown as Guinness. There is much shrieking and splashing, staggering and shoving, in the deeper part of the swimming hole. A couple of inner tubes float by, skip over the rapids, then float by again. Girls stand in the shallows and shave their legs; boys wade past, politely trying not to splash me as I write. Some give me a curious look, but only one stops to ask what I'm doing. "Oh, uh, I'm keeping a camp journal," I say, instantly self-conscious.
"What's happened so far?" he asks.
I stammer and flip back through the pages. "Uh... you were there for most of it?" I say. He laughs and moves on.
Later, I opt out of the evening's activity, a game in which cabins attempt to dunk each other in waist-deep water. I don't want to deal with contact lenses, fast-moving water, or one-on-one conflict. This year there is no giant red ball to provide a non-combative goal for the exercise. I am tougher than I look, especially when hyped up on adrenaline, and I know I could hold my own. But I have a strong desire to not participate in this, and I go with it, claiming journalistic immunity by taking photos for participants. And I seize a rare opportunity to talk with my good friend Whompy and quiz him about his tandem bike tour with his mysterious girlfriend. (Actually, it's not so much that she's mysterious, as it is that I haven't heard about her before now, considering how long they've been dating.)
The evening's devo involves the testimony of a minister whose life has been changed irrevocably by self-destructive choices. It's heartfelt, and heartbreaking, but it forces me to once again confront the issue I wrestled with yesterday. Thus far, the apparent focus of this year's spiritual instruction around the campfire has been on not sinning. Is this really as far as our faith goes? Are we more concerned with protecting our youth from consequences than we are with their relationship with the Divine? Do we really believe that not breaking the rules makes you a good person?
I am so discontented with this being given the spotlight. It was the same when I was a camper (elsewhere): the big intense firelit talks about sexual purity, not hanging out with bad influences, not drinking/smoking/partying. It was all about not causing trouble. I understand that those who have dealt with the heavy consequences of their choices want to spare the next generation from a similar fate. But is this really what we need to be emphasizing most? (And if we're going to talk about sins, are partying, drugs/alcohol, and premarital sex really the biggest dangers we can think of to warn our teenagers against?)
Yes, we're studying scripture in our daytime classes. We're singing and worshipping together at devo, too. Those are all constructive things. But it seems to me we've brought the mentality of the old-school tent-revival altar call with us into our present-day retreats, and I question its ultimate value in helping us learn to love and serve God better.
As a teen who was pretty good at following rules, I never knew exactly where I fit in with this sin-sational approach. Was it even for me? Like, should I scrape together some confession about having a bad attitude, and offer it up beside dramatic tales of drug abuse and back-seat liaisons? Maybe I should go out and commit some interesting sins so I could relate? Or should I just be conscious that this event, like so many youth group activities, was tailored more to the needs of other people than to mine? I spent so much time wondering where I fit into all of this, when, with a different kind of spiritual instruction, I could have been moving forward. I was eager to move forward. I am angry about this, on behalf of my teenage self, and on behalf of these teens.
So this is the frustration that I bring to the topic. And other factors, I know, affect my ability to see it clearly. I mean I am very self-centered, if the above paragraph didn't clue you in to that, and also I am very good at lying to myself. I have to consider the possibility that I, too, have something specific and obvious to confess and repent of, and I am using this internal conflict to mask it from myself.
Thursday, August 05, 2010
Revenge of Camp Stories: Monday, July 19.
I sleep fitfully, as is not unusual for my first night at camp. I'm itchy, and every skin-twinge might be the brush of a mosquito's wings. My bladder eventually drives me to shuffle across the hill to the bathhouse, thumping my temperamental flashlight to life.
All morning I am spacey, too dull-witted to write. I don't want to be antisocial, so I find conversations to park myself at the edge of, saying little, while my mind drifts. Later, I'm not the only sleepy one as we listen to the entire book of Mark read aloud by a rotating cast of narrators. I have to laugh (internally) as I rein myself in from dozing midway through chapter 14, where Jesus is chiding his best friends for falling asleep when he needs them most. Alas, that would've been me. "Could you not keep watch for one hour?" he asks, and Mark hardly takes longer than that to read through.
Five people (all girls) sign up for my five-day class on World Travel & Missions. I am tremendously relieved. Last year my class on Journal Comics got me three students the first week, none the second. Though I enjoyed that extra free time, the fail didn't help with my insecurities about teaching. I'm lining up guest speakers and have finally, the day before starting, managed to visualize my first lesson activity (yeah, prep has never been my strong suit).
Campers are split up into permanent teams for chore assignments and group games. Each team has a male and female staff member attached to it, responsible for making sure everyone is present and involved. Last year Jeff (now camp director) was my fellow team leader, and he was so on top of everything that I could often just sit back and enjoy the ride. This year, an enthusiastic but frequently oblivious college student is my partner, which forces me to have my act together. This is a good thing (I frequently remind myself).
The latter part of the day echoes memories of old routine: rest period (ahh, blessed naptime), group activity, free time (shower!), dinner, a dodgeball game enhanced with water balloons and the "Death Star", time to clean ourselves up, and evening devotional. This one's outside, around a campfire, with a skit performed by some of the staff. The skit involves a young man who is telling his girlfriend how much he loves spending Sundays with her, attending church, praising God, reading the Bible, etc. "You're my Sunday Girl!" he tells her affectionately, but then inadvertently mentions that he spends Mondays with a different girl, who balances his checkbook and gets his finances in order. She appears, followed by Tuesday Girl who has just leveled up her fifth World of Warcraft character, Wednesday Girl who likes to veg out and take naps with him, Thursday Girl who likes sports and exercise... you get the picture. The obvious message is that we should put God first every day of the week, but I am so delighted by the idea of this fantastical romantic arrangement (my roster clearly needs to include a chef, a sailor, a musician...) that it's hard for me to pay attention to the lesson that immediately follows.
The speaker has a lot of hard-earned wisdom to share, but his emphasis is on staying out of trouble by avoiding the big-ticket sins. I feel strongly that this should not be the core of the message we communicate here, and I disagree with the way he uses fear as a motivator ("I don't think you guys really believe in Hell," he says at one point, as though if we all just believed in it better, everything would be all right). And while I think the morality of violent video games is certainly worth discussing, he sounds out of touch to me when he warns that they desensitize gamers from their own mortality. The gamers I know all have a pretty healthy sense of self-preservation. But frustration with this particular speaker is not new to me, and I grit my teeth, smack at mosquitoes, and wait it out. It'll get better, I tell myself. It has to.
My fellow Merry Breezes counselor, Lorraine, wants to do a confessional cabin devo at lights-out time. I am wary -- as a camper, there's no way I'd open up on the second night -- but I agree to go along with it if our third cabin counselor, Natalie, agrees. She does, and I am amazed: nearly half the cabin has something to share in that darkened room, something they're running from, something that's holding them back. For myself, I can't figure out how to describe my struggles with any coherence ("Hey kids, ever heard of acedia?"), but I conclude the session with a song and prayer, and we tumble into our beds where, mercifully, sleep is not long in coming to me.
All morning I am spacey, too dull-witted to write. I don't want to be antisocial, so I find conversations to park myself at the edge of, saying little, while my mind drifts. Later, I'm not the only sleepy one as we listen to the entire book of Mark read aloud by a rotating cast of narrators. I have to laugh (internally) as I rein myself in from dozing midway through chapter 14, where Jesus is chiding his best friends for falling asleep when he needs them most. Alas, that would've been me. "Could you not keep watch for one hour?" he asks, and Mark hardly takes longer than that to read through.
Five people (all girls) sign up for my five-day class on World Travel & Missions. I am tremendously relieved. Last year my class on Journal Comics got me three students the first week, none the second. Though I enjoyed that extra free time, the fail didn't help with my insecurities about teaching. I'm lining up guest speakers and have finally, the day before starting, managed to visualize my first lesson activity (yeah, prep has never been my strong suit).
Campers are split up into permanent teams for chore assignments and group games. Each team has a male and female staff member attached to it, responsible for making sure everyone is present and involved. Last year Jeff (now camp director) was my fellow team leader, and he was so on top of everything that I could often just sit back and enjoy the ride. This year, an enthusiastic but frequently oblivious college student is my partner, which forces me to have my act together. This is a good thing (I frequently remind myself).
The latter part of the day echoes memories of old routine: rest period (ahh, blessed naptime), group activity, free time (shower!), dinner, a dodgeball game enhanced with water balloons and the "Death Star", time to clean ourselves up, and evening devotional. This one's outside, around a campfire, with a skit performed by some of the staff. The skit involves a young man who is telling his girlfriend how much he loves spending Sundays with her, attending church, praising God, reading the Bible, etc. "You're my Sunday Girl!" he tells her affectionately, but then inadvertently mentions that he spends Mondays with a different girl, who balances his checkbook and gets his finances in order. She appears, followed by Tuesday Girl who has just leveled up her fifth World of Warcraft character, Wednesday Girl who likes to veg out and take naps with him, Thursday Girl who likes sports and exercise... you get the picture. The obvious message is that we should put God first every day of the week, but I am so delighted by the idea of this fantastical romantic arrangement (my roster clearly needs to include a chef, a sailor, a musician...) that it's hard for me to pay attention to the lesson that immediately follows.
The speaker has a lot of hard-earned wisdom to share, but his emphasis is on staying out of trouble by avoiding the big-ticket sins. I feel strongly that this should not be the core of the message we communicate here, and I disagree with the way he uses fear as a motivator ("I don't think you guys really believe in Hell," he says at one point, as though if we all just believed in it better, everything would be all right). And while I think the morality of violent video games is certainly worth discussing, he sounds out of touch to me when he warns that they desensitize gamers from their own mortality. The gamers I know all have a pretty healthy sense of self-preservation. But frustration with this particular speaker is not new to me, and I grit my teeth, smack at mosquitoes, and wait it out. It'll get better, I tell myself. It has to.
My fellow Merry Breezes counselor, Lorraine, wants to do a confessional cabin devo at lights-out time. I am wary -- as a camper, there's no way I'd open up on the second night -- but I agree to go along with it if our third cabin counselor, Natalie, agrees. She does, and I am amazed: nearly half the cabin has something to share in that darkened room, something they're running from, something that's holding them back. For myself, I can't figure out how to describe my struggles with any coherence ("Hey kids, ever heard of acedia?"), but I conclude the session with a song and prayer, and we tumble into our beds where, mercifully, sleep is not long in coming to me.
Wednesday, August 04, 2010
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.
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.
Friday, July 16, 2010
I Wrote This On An Airplane, But Now I Am Not On An Airplane.
BLORT.
That, friends, is the (inaudible) sound of a Sakura pen dumping black ink on the knee of the only jeans I'll have for the next two weeks.
Oh, it doesn't matter. I'm going to Camp. The only people at Camp who are putting forth much of an effort to look tidy are a handful of teenaged girls (who have to be fended off from the bathrooms before 6:30 a.m, or who knows how many hours they'd spend primping). And I have other things to wear. It's really no big deal.
But. Y'know. ...I had a point to make about this, but it's hard to concentrate when the kid behind me keeps bumping my seat. I'd be mad, but the kid is obviously related to Spider-Man, who is curled up asleep on the seat next to him. Spider-Man! On my airplane! For reals!
I always pictured Spider-Man as being taller by about three feet. And not wearing red Crocs. But whatever. Spider-Man!
My lack of blogging lately has been due more to a shortage of time (and, yes, discipline) than to any lack of things to write about. Last week I had two couchsurfers from Switzerland (lovely people) and I spent a good chunk of my weekend with them (Mississippi Street Fair, Trek in the Park, Marine Drive, and various local eateries).
The weekend before that, I went to Eugene to spend the 4th with family, but before I went, there was a cookout and a sparkler bomb.
And the weekend before that, I went to Olympia to help build a tiny house, which somehow developed into a bizarre adventure involving live Danish folk music around a midsummer bonfire, a stealthy midnight visit to my favorite boat, and sleeping on a 23' yawl under a full moon.
So right now, what I think I would like more than anything is a weekend with absolutely nothing planned. A weekend in which I sit/lie around not doing much of anything, only taking on responsibilities that seem manageable with limited effort and appeal to the whims of the moment. I am going to make a point of having at least one of these in August.
But first: Camp! And a visit with The Mitch.
That, friends, is the (inaudible) sound of a Sakura pen dumping black ink on the knee of the only jeans I'll have for the next two weeks.
Oh, it doesn't matter. I'm going to Camp. The only people at Camp who are putting forth much of an effort to look tidy are a handful of teenaged girls (who have to be fended off from the bathrooms before 6:30 a.m, or who knows how many hours they'd spend primping). And I have other things to wear. It's really no big deal.
But. Y'know. ...I had a point to make about this, but it's hard to concentrate when the kid behind me keeps bumping my seat. I'd be mad, but the kid is obviously related to Spider-Man, who is curled up asleep on the seat next to him. Spider-Man! On my airplane! For reals!
I always pictured Spider-Man as being taller by about three feet. And not wearing red Crocs. But whatever. Spider-Man!
My lack of blogging lately has been due more to a shortage of time (and, yes, discipline) than to any lack of things to write about. Last week I had two couchsurfers from Switzerland (lovely people) and I spent a good chunk of my weekend with them (Mississippi Street Fair, Trek in the Park, Marine Drive, and various local eateries).
The weekend before that, I went to Eugene to spend the 4th with family, but before I went, there was a cookout and a sparkler bomb.
And the weekend before that, I went to Olympia to help build a tiny house, which somehow developed into a bizarre adventure involving live Danish folk music around a midsummer bonfire, a stealthy midnight visit to my favorite boat, and sleeping on a 23' yawl under a full moon.
So right now, what I think I would like more than anything is a weekend with absolutely nothing planned. A weekend in which I sit/lie around not doing much of anything, only taking on responsibilities that seem manageable with limited effort and appeal to the whims of the moment. I am going to make a point of having at least one of these in August.
But first: Camp! And a visit with The Mitch.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Highlights from the Northwest Folklife Festival, 2010.
- Buskers. Buskers, buskers, buskers. Buskers with didjeridoos, buskers with drums, buskers twiddling Labyrinth-type glass spheres, buskers with one-man-band getups, buskers in clusters, buskers going it alone. Incredibly talented buskers and buskers operating on sheer chutzpah. Folklife is buskers, at its heart; the rest is just icing. I noticed accordions were big this year. I didn't see anyone painted all one color holding really still, though; apparently that schtick has gone out of fashion.
- A music/dance performance by the Northwest Korean Arts Center, a marvel of precision and grace... aside from the children's dance number, which was an utter disaster (missing every cue and getting all clustered up and tripping over each other, one tiny girl standing there bawling over a minor injury while the others danced on without her) and which, of course, completely stole the show.
- Watching a guy surprise his girlfriend by showing up from out of town right after her East Indian dance performance. Her response was priceless. (She sort of yelped, and then she stood there for a beat and looked at him, and then she hugged him, and then she shoved him away and yelled, "You are such a liar!" and then she hugged him again even tighter.)
- Coyote Grace: If I were writing ad copy for this band, I would namecheck Old Crow Medicine Show and Martin Sexton. Of course they weren't as good as either of those, I mean come on, but still: extremely listenable.
- I got three contra dances in. Gary (#1) kept telling me "The important thing is to have fun," probably because I was having trouble getting my shoulders out of the "freeway driving" setting, but still, that's really not something you want to hear from your dancing partner. Will (#2) was terrific, though, lively and infectiously cheerful and conscious of the subtleties that make everything go smoother. And Justin (#3) was very patient even though I could not seem to remember for the life of me how a "hay-for-four" works, ugh. Oh, but the band was called Full Moon and they were super good.
- Dinner and catching-up with MikenViv, who were generous enough to put me up on short notice in very comfortable quarters, and even let me snuggle their dog. They are remarkably cool people I could easily have missed the opportunity to get to know, and I'm so, so glad I didn't.
- Saanish (Coast Salish) storyteller Che Oke' Ten cramming a remarkable array of stories, music, and tradition into a half hour. This guy was good. I don't wanna get all mystical on you here, but seriously, his funny story about his mother trying to chase down a dachshund named "Handsome" was a better sermon in six minutes than I usually get at church in forty-five (and my preacher is no slouch).
- Mingushki, a smokin' world music trio with a sinuous trumpet, saucy percussion, and an accordion-shaped heart. The tunes they played were mostly from Eastern Europe and Central America, and their time signatures were insane. Apparently they also play with a larger Balkan ensemble, one of whom was absolutely certain he knew me from somewhere (we couldn't figure it out, and before you ask, no, he wasn't playing it like a pickup line).
- Salmon with cilantro sauce and rice. (Would you like a samosa for $2 more? Um, yes. Yes I would.)
- Eavesdropping on a fortune teller who does divination with toy dinosaurs. She was saying things like, "...but another thing about Stegosaurus is, he has two brains, one in his head and another in his tail, which relates to dividing your attention between two areas of focus," and her teenage customer was nodding his hoodied head very seriously.
- A toddler who waved and said, "Hi!" as though we were old friends. Unclear whether this had anything to do with the knit cap with bear ears I was wearing at the time.
- A brief baptism in the sea of electronic sound at the 8-Bit Showcase. The band I caught, Fighter X, were doing that looping-electronic-performance thing where they twiddle their equipment while bobbing their heads, then jump and flail around wildly, then go back to twiddling. Repeat ad hilarium. The Sky Church has this giant video wall that was looping brilliant blinky patterns. The effect was mesmerizing, but about as far from folk music as you can get. "Scream if you want more bass!" hollered one of the musicians, as if you could even hear the crowd over the music, and then they bumped it way up and the notes vibrated all through my tired muscles. Ahhh.
- Mr. Yuk was there. Mr. Yuk! I thought he was dead! I also thought he was two-dimensional. Shows what I know. I gave him a hug, and he gave me a bright green pencil with WASHINGTON POISON CENTER on it. POISON HELP, it says, with a handy number to call in case I need any help poisoning someone.
- A music/dance performance by the Northwest Korean Arts Center, a marvel of precision and grace... aside from the children's dance number, which was an utter disaster (missing every cue and getting all clustered up and tripping over each other, one tiny girl standing there bawling over a minor injury while the others danced on without her) and which, of course, completely stole the show.
- Watching a guy surprise his girlfriend by showing up from out of town right after her East Indian dance performance. Her response was priceless. (She sort of yelped, and then she stood there for a beat and looked at him, and then she hugged him, and then she shoved him away and yelled, "You are such a liar!" and then she hugged him again even tighter.)
- Coyote Grace: If I were writing ad copy for this band, I would namecheck Old Crow Medicine Show and Martin Sexton. Of course they weren't as good as either of those, I mean come on, but still: extremely listenable.
- I got three contra dances in. Gary (#1) kept telling me "The important thing is to have fun," probably because I was having trouble getting my shoulders out of the "freeway driving" setting, but still, that's really not something you want to hear from your dancing partner. Will (#2) was terrific, though, lively and infectiously cheerful and conscious of the subtleties that make everything go smoother. And Justin (#3) was very patient even though I could not seem to remember for the life of me how a "hay-for-four" works, ugh. Oh, but the band was called Full Moon and they were super good.
- Dinner and catching-up with MikenViv, who were generous enough to put me up on short notice in very comfortable quarters, and even let me snuggle their dog. They are remarkably cool people I could easily have missed the opportunity to get to know, and I'm so, so glad I didn't.
- Saanish (Coast Salish) storyteller Che Oke' Ten cramming a remarkable array of stories, music, and tradition into a half hour. This guy was good. I don't wanna get all mystical on you here, but seriously, his funny story about his mother trying to chase down a dachshund named "Handsome" was a better sermon in six minutes than I usually get at church in forty-five (and my preacher is no slouch).
- Mingushki, a smokin' world music trio with a sinuous trumpet, saucy percussion, and an accordion-shaped heart. The tunes they played were mostly from Eastern Europe and Central America, and their time signatures were insane. Apparently they also play with a larger Balkan ensemble, one of whom was absolutely certain he knew me from somewhere (we couldn't figure it out, and before you ask, no, he wasn't playing it like a pickup line).
- Salmon with cilantro sauce and rice. (Would you like a samosa for $2 more? Um, yes. Yes I would.)
- Eavesdropping on a fortune teller who does divination with toy dinosaurs. She was saying things like, "...but another thing about Stegosaurus is, he has two brains, one in his head and another in his tail, which relates to dividing your attention between two areas of focus," and her teenage customer was nodding his hoodied head very seriously.
- A toddler who waved and said, "Hi!" as though we were old friends. Unclear whether this had anything to do with the knit cap with bear ears I was wearing at the time.
- A brief baptism in the sea of electronic sound at the 8-Bit Showcase. The band I caught, Fighter X, were doing that looping-electronic-performance thing where they twiddle their equipment while bobbing their heads, then jump and flail around wildly, then go back to twiddling. Repeat ad hilarium. The Sky Church has this giant video wall that was looping brilliant blinky patterns. The effect was mesmerizing, but about as far from folk music as you can get. "Scream if you want more bass!" hollered one of the musicians, as if you could even hear the crowd over the music, and then they bumped it way up and the notes vibrated all through my tired muscles. Ahhh.
- Mr. Yuk was there. Mr. Yuk! I thought he was dead! I also thought he was two-dimensional. Shows what I know. I gave him a hug, and he gave me a bright green pencil with WASHINGTON POISON CENTER on it. POISON HELP, it says, with a handy number to call in case I need any help poisoning someone.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
URLwarming!
Well, I... I did it. I think it worked, mostly? Except for the part where the new location says "this blog has moved" and the old one doesn't. But I fixed that with some internet duct tape. I've been tweaking the look, too. I'm no graphic designer, but I know it could be better, so I plan to continue adjusting until I get bored with it.
This is decidedly a downgrade as far as URLs go. But it just doesn't make sense to host my own blog anymore. And I investigated WordPress and yes, there are things about it I like a lot better, but also there are still things I like better about Blogger, and it came down to which was easier at the time, i.e. the grass on this side of the fence. I can still switch. I may still switch. But for now, here I am. Right here at this ridiculously lengthy address.
So if you have an RSS reader, I guess you got the previous post and have switched your feed-tubes so you can still savor occasional helpings of my delicious prose, right? If not, there's a handy little link over on the right (under the moon) to help you do just that. If you do not have an RSS reader, you must be wasting a lot of time clicking on bookmarks! You should really consider letting the internet keep an eye on your favorite sites for you. Google Reader or Bloglines or similar web services can provide you with regular fieldtrips out of the Facebook ghetto.
Although if your web activities are primarily restricted to Facebook, I guess you're not reading this. Carry on!
This is decidedly a downgrade as far as URLs go. But it just doesn't make sense to host my own blog anymore. And I investigated WordPress and yes, there are things about it I like a lot better, but also there are still things I like better about Blogger, and it came down to which was easier at the time, i.e. the grass on this side of the fence. I can still switch. I may still switch. But for now, here I am. Right here at this ridiculously lengthy address.
So if you have an RSS reader, I guess you got the previous post and have switched your feed-tubes so you can still savor occasional helpings of my delicious prose, right? If not, there's a handy little link over on the right (under the moon) to help you do just that. If you do not have an RSS reader, you must be wasting a lot of time clicking on bookmarks! You should really consider letting the internet keep an eye on your favorite sites for you. Google Reader or Bloglines or similar web services can provide you with regular fieldtrips out of the Facebook ghetto.
Although if your web activities are primarily restricted to Facebook, I guess you're not reading this. Carry on!
Sunday, April 25, 2010
This blog has moved
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I Don't Even Know What Will Happen!
Yeah, so I spent some time looking at WordPress and thinking about the relative benefits of WP vs. Blogger and hosting vs. no longer hosting my own blog (and by extension my whole dang site, I mean what do I need a site (that I don't update) for if I don't have a blog (that I don't update) on it, except for occasional file hosting and an excuse to dink around with HTML occasionally?). Also I've got this Amazon S3 account now, and admittedly I still don't know how to use it, but it seems like it might work just as well if not better if I can just get past that little hurdle of ignorance. So there's, like, a layer cake of decisions to make here and I can't seem to approach it from any angle other than complete haphazardry (yeah, that's a word now). As in, "let's try this and see what happens."FTP publishing will no longer be available after May 1, 2010You currently have blogs that are published using FTP. You must migrate your blogs to a new custom domain URL or a blogspot URL. To learn more, see our dedicated blog and help documentation.
So I'm currently all hopped up on chai and comics and I'm going to click that blog migration link now, which may turn out to have been a terrible idea, but that May 1 deadline is breathing down my neck and it's been eating garlic. There is a very good chance that all my blog posts will be regurgitated into your RSS feed, or that you will suddenly be unsubscribed and have to readjust your feed to reconnect. I apologize for any such mishaps in advance.
HERE WE GO
Sunday, March 07, 2010
Welcome to the Lair.
Slowly, slowly I've been picking my way through the artifacts and paper-clutter that have accumulated in my life's wake. The other day I found the three-ring binder containing my notes from the basic web design instruction I took in 1996, at UHSLIS. My first lessons in HTML markup are all there in my own handwriting, tags earnestly written out for easy future reference, reminders like "Don't use tables if you can help it" and "Shrink graphix w/Photoshop - under 25K!!" And there are all these references to things like Lynx and UNIX commands and explanations of what things stand for (a href = Anchor Hypertext REFerence, if you were wondering) and, awww, it's just so cute to see it from the present day, after we've come so far. Like film footage of myself learning to walk or something. Here's the first page. If you were doing web stuff in the mid-90s, maybe you'll get what I mean.
I actually still use HTML tags with some regularity (the content management system at work requires a lot of cleaning up after), so this stuff isn't wholly obsolete. But the whole concept of writing it out by hand has gone by the wayside. If I need to check proper tag usage, I'm not going to reach for a 3-ring binder, I'm going to google the answer. I've adapted to this so thoroughly that it's mind-boggling to think of how completely outside my experience that was at the time.
Behind the seven pages of HTML notes are six pages of URLs. Yes, six handwritten notebook pages full of URLs, 98% of which are (I'm guessing) long since defunct. Because back then, kiddies, there were no websites set up to mind your links for you. And even if there had been, they would have been terribly inconvenient because there was no tabbed browsing, and the more browser windows you had open, the slower your computer ran. So if you found a website that you wanted to find again, your options were limited to a) browser bookmarks (useless if you're browsing in a lab), b) writing it down on paper, or c) e-mailing it to yourself, a strategy I adapted after that sixth page.
What's most interesting about this, to me, is that I had such a hunt-and-gather approach to the Web, like I had to discover and collect it all. I was immediately hooked on the boundless possibilities for exploration, and would think up obscure topics to research just to see what was out there. What does the Internet have about Ben Folds? Celtic folk music? Arthurian legend? At this point in internet history, it was easy to think of an exhaustible topic, i.e, you could conceivably read through all the sites known to Webcrawler/AltaVista/Yahoo on (say) Tove Jansson's Moomins in a single evening. But seeing it all wasn't enough. I had to hold on to that info, to walk away with something to show for it -- even if that was just a line of scribbled characters on a sheet of paper, a ring of keys meant to unlock doors to which I rarely if ever returned.
I'm glad I don't feel the need to do that anymore (or worse, print out all my "important" e-mails... professors actually advised us to do this! I'm happy to report that I gave up on it pretty quickly). But there was something much more active about how I interacted with the 'net back then: it was all me doing the pursuing. Now that I have various online services trained to bring me what I'm interested in, my primary mode is just keeping up, rather than going out on the hunt. In some ways, that's less satisfying.
That class I mentioned required me to create my own homepage, so the other interesting thing in that binder was a set of printouts of its code. My first homepage! I called it "Lindsey's Lair", hah. The bulk of it was a series of links to things like my online assignments, homepages of friends and classmates, and randomly relevant links (another mind-boggler: at the time it apparently seemed like a good idea to link to my credit union?). I tried to include a new quote and a new poem every week (not my own, and with utter disregard for copyright), as well as a small but cheery block of welcome text. Here's one of those, for your amusement:
I actually still use HTML tags with some regularity (the content management system at work requires a lot of cleaning up after), so this stuff isn't wholly obsolete. But the whole concept of writing it out by hand has gone by the wayside. If I need to check proper tag usage, I'm not going to reach for a 3-ring binder, I'm going to google the answer. I've adapted to this so thoroughly that it's mind-boggling to think of how completely outside my experience that was at the time.
Behind the seven pages of HTML notes are six pages of URLs. Yes, six handwritten notebook pages full of URLs, 98% of which are (I'm guessing) long since defunct. Because back then, kiddies, there were no websites set up to mind your links for you. And even if there had been, they would have been terribly inconvenient because there was no tabbed browsing, and the more browser windows you had open, the slower your computer ran. So if you found a website that you wanted to find again, your options were limited to a) browser bookmarks (useless if you're browsing in a lab), b) writing it down on paper, or c) e-mailing it to yourself, a strategy I adapted after that sixth page.
What's most interesting about this, to me, is that I had such a hunt-and-gather approach to the Web, like I had to discover and collect it all. I was immediately hooked on the boundless possibilities for exploration, and would think up obscure topics to research just to see what was out there. What does the Internet have about Ben Folds? Celtic folk music? Arthurian legend? At this point in internet history, it was easy to think of an exhaustible topic, i.e, you could conceivably read through all the sites known to Webcrawler/AltaVista/Yahoo on (say) Tove Jansson's Moomins in a single evening. But seeing it all wasn't enough. I had to hold on to that info, to walk away with something to show for it -- even if that was just a line of scribbled characters on a sheet of paper, a ring of keys meant to unlock doors to which I rarely if ever returned.
I'm glad I don't feel the need to do that anymore (or worse, print out all my "important" e-mails... professors actually advised us to do this! I'm happy to report that I gave up on it pretty quickly). But there was something much more active about how I interacted with the 'net back then: it was all me doing the pursuing. Now that I have various online services trained to bring me what I'm interested in, my primary mode is just keeping up, rather than going out on the hunt. In some ways, that's less satisfying.
That class I mentioned required me to create my own homepage, so the other interesting thing in that binder was a set of printouts of its code. My first homepage! I called it "Lindsey's Lair", hah. The bulk of it was a series of links to things like my online assignments, homepages of friends and classmates, and randomly relevant links (another mind-boggler: at the time it apparently seemed like a good idea to link to my credit union?). I tried to include a new quote and a new poem every week (not my own, and with utter disregard for copyright), as well as a small but cheery block of welcome text. Here's one of those, for your amusement:
Welcome to the Lair (or welcome back, as the case may be). Things have been pretty quiet around the old place lately; you'll seldom find me home, because I'm out stalking my prey of Learning and Achievement. (I like them served with Cheese.) Still, the door's unlocked and you're always welcome to wander in.O Internet! So much has changed! Or has it?
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Geek-stalgia Alert!
I recently learned of the existence of a couple of sites devoted to old PC games: Abandonia.com and DOSgamesarchive.com. Many of the titles listed on both are "abandonware" and therefore downloadable, free and legal, along with whatever copy-protection, manuals, maps, etc. accompanied the original.
[This is the part where I gesticulate excitedly while stammering.]
I can't explain the significance of this discovery without going into a little personal history. If you are not prepared to indulge me in reminiscence, feel free to move along.
My teen years revolved around PC games, from the day my mom and I got our hands on a pile of 5.25" shareware floppies in the mid '80s. Those first games were terribly disappointing. There was the one with the parrot, mostly designed to show off the amazing 16-color capabilities of the IBM PCjr. If you pressed certain keys, the parrot would shriek, "Awk!" and "Don't touch me!" in a jarring digitized voice. Then there was Donkey: you are driving a racecar down a two-lane road, bird's-eye view, no scenery. You cannot alter your speed; the road blips past one slow pixel-chunk at a time. All you can do is change lanes. Left lane, right lane. Occasionally, there is a donkey in one of the lanes. The goal is to not hit the donkey, and also, to not die of boredom.
The old Speak 'n Spell looked pretty exciting compared to these. But better stuff was out there, and it was just a matter of time (weeks, actually, if memory serves) before it would start trickling down to us.
The shareware library of the local IBM PCjr Club brought us many treasures: Snipe and 3-Demon, free clones of Space Invaders and Tetris. And of course there were the text adventures, even the simplest a dazzling improvement on those disappointing Choose Your Own Adventure books. I never solved a one of 'em, but I loved the exhilarating feeling of exploring new worlds.
But things really got exciting when Mom and Dad okayed actually spending money on games. I scoured the computer magazines and studied game reviews like I'd be tested on them. Adventure games were my passion, entered through that blocky King's Quest portal and pursued through numerous clunky titles, all the way to the pinnacle of that lost genre, The Secret of Monkey Island, and beyond. And there were delights and marvels to be found in other genres, countless gleeful hours spent playing Pirates! and Lemmings and Wing Commander.
These games were where I lived, during the endless torturous years of adolescence. Riding the bus, sitting through classes, eating dinner, I was playing them in my head, trying to work out the next puzzle, having conversations with their characters. They eased my teenage malaise, but yes, Mom and Dad, they also taught me some really useful stuff. From SimCity I gleaned rudimentary but valuable lessons in urban planning, and from Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego I learned what the World Almanac is for. Rocky's Boots taught me boolean logic more clearly and memorably than any math class ever did, which saved me a lot of grief in library school. And what I know of Caribbean geography, I owe to that Pirates! map.
But my early experience with computer games always had a flavor of scarcity to it. We had to wait for shareware to trickle down to us through people with modems, we had to wait until the prices of new commercial games dropped, and we had to wait for Mom to soup "Junior" up with yet more power and peripherals to keep up with the software. That machine got more tricked out than its creators ever imagined possible. Even so, the acquisition of a new game was often followed by howls of frustration: "Mommmm! It doesn't worrrrrrk!" ...whereupon she would, more often than not, drop everything and go poke around in DOS until the software would either behave properly, or be declared a lost cause. What with one thing and another, games were, in those days, rarely easy to come by.
And therein lies the irony. Now, thanks to the Internets, I have an endless wealth of games freely available to me, including the stuff I played way-back-when, including the stuff I wished I could play way-back-when and couldn't, including two decades' worth of shinier, newer things. And now, spending time on these things seems not like a welcome relief from a drab existence, but like a terrible waste of precious free time that could be spent on more fruitful pursuits. My adolescent self would not get this.
Seeing as how so many of my old favorites are now freely available, I have finally faced the box of "classic" games and pared it down to a few essentials. Now I have a stack of old PC games that are about to be homeless, and should theoretically run just fine with the help of an emulator. If you're geeky enough to have read this far, who knows, you might possibly be interested in what I'm getting rid of! Or... not. But I hate the idea of throwing old treasures away when there's a chance someone I know could use 'em. So if you want any of these vintage delights, just say the word and they're yours. I might even ship 'em if you ask nicely.
Pirates! Gold 3.5" floppies, DOS, in box w/manual.*
Lords of the Realm II CD, 95/DOS, in box.
The Lost Treasures of Infocom 3.5/5.25" floppies, DOS, in box with maps, guidebook, hintbook.**
(Contains Zork 1-3, Beyond Zork, Zork Zero, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Planetfall, Stationfall, Enchanter, Sorceror, Spellbreaker, Moonmist, Witness, Deadline, Starcross, Suspended, Suspect, Ballyhoo, Lurking Horror, and Infidel.)
Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail CD, 95/DOS, in box.
Tropico CD, 95/97/2000/ME/NT4, in box.
Tropico 2: Pirate Cove CD, 98/ME/2000/XP, in box.
Ultima Collection CD, 95/98/DOS. No box, but map book/reference card.*
Grim Fandango CD, 95/98. CD case only.
The Manhole CD, Win?, CD case only.
Goblins Quest 3 (a.k.a. Goblins 3) 3.5" floppies, DOS, no case (manual & discs only).*
SimCity for Windows 3.5" floppies, Win/DOS, no case (manual & discs only).*
Tetris/Welltris/Faces-tris 3.5" floppy, DOS, no case (manual & discs only).**
* This game is available to download for free on Abandonia.com, so yeah, you probably don't need the hard copy either. Sigh.
** Some (not all) of the games in this set are available free on Abandonia.com.
[This is the part where I gesticulate excitedly while stammering.]
I can't explain the significance of this discovery without going into a little personal history. If you are not prepared to indulge me in reminiscence, feel free to move along.
My teen years revolved around PC games, from the day my mom and I got our hands on a pile of 5.25" shareware floppies in the mid '80s. Those first games were terribly disappointing. There was the one with the parrot, mostly designed to show off the amazing 16-color capabilities of the IBM PCjr. If you pressed certain keys, the parrot would shriek, "Awk!" and "Don't touch me!" in a jarring digitized voice. Then there was Donkey: you are driving a racecar down a two-lane road, bird's-eye view, no scenery. You cannot alter your speed; the road blips past one slow pixel-chunk at a time. All you can do is change lanes. Left lane, right lane. Occasionally, there is a donkey in one of the lanes. The goal is to not hit the donkey, and also, to not die of boredom.
The old Speak 'n Spell looked pretty exciting compared to these. But better stuff was out there, and it was just a matter of time (weeks, actually, if memory serves) before it would start trickling down to us.
The shareware library of the local IBM PCjr Club brought us many treasures: Snipe and 3-Demon, free clones of Space Invaders and Tetris. And of course there were the text adventures, even the simplest a dazzling improvement on those disappointing Choose Your Own Adventure books. I never solved a one of 'em, but I loved the exhilarating feeling of exploring new worlds.
But things really got exciting when Mom and Dad okayed actually spending money on games. I scoured the computer magazines and studied game reviews like I'd be tested on them. Adventure games were my passion, entered through that blocky King's Quest portal and pursued through numerous clunky titles, all the way to the pinnacle of that lost genre, The Secret of Monkey Island, and beyond. And there were delights and marvels to be found in other genres, countless gleeful hours spent playing Pirates! and Lemmings and Wing Commander.
These games were where I lived, during the endless torturous years of adolescence. Riding the bus, sitting through classes, eating dinner, I was playing them in my head, trying to work out the next puzzle, having conversations with their characters. They eased my teenage malaise, but yes, Mom and Dad, they also taught me some really useful stuff. From SimCity I gleaned rudimentary but valuable lessons in urban planning, and from Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego I learned what the World Almanac is for. Rocky's Boots taught me boolean logic more clearly and memorably than any math class ever did, which saved me a lot of grief in library school. And what I know of Caribbean geography, I owe to that Pirates! map.
But my early experience with computer games always had a flavor of scarcity to it. We had to wait for shareware to trickle down to us through people with modems, we had to wait until the prices of new commercial games dropped, and we had to wait for Mom to soup "Junior" up with yet more power and peripherals to keep up with the software. That machine got more tricked out than its creators ever imagined possible. Even so, the acquisition of a new game was often followed by howls of frustration: "Mommmm! It doesn't worrrrrrk!" ...whereupon she would, more often than not, drop everything and go poke around in DOS until the software would either behave properly, or be declared a lost cause. What with one thing and another, games were, in those days, rarely easy to come by.
And therein lies the irony. Now, thanks to the Internets, I have an endless wealth of games freely available to me, including the stuff I played way-back-when, including the stuff I wished I could play way-back-when and couldn't, including two decades' worth of shinier, newer things. And now, spending time on these things seems not like a welcome relief from a drab existence, but like a terrible waste of precious free time that could be spent on more fruitful pursuits. My adolescent self would not get this.
Seeing as how so many of my old favorites are now freely available, I have finally faced the box of "classic" games and pared it down to a few essentials. Now I have a stack of old PC games that are about to be homeless, and should theoretically run just fine with the help of an emulator. If you're geeky enough to have read this far, who knows, you might possibly be interested in what I'm getting rid of! Or... not. But I hate the idea of throwing old treasures away when there's a chance someone I know could use 'em. So if you want any of these vintage delights, just say the word and they're yours. I might even ship 'em if you ask nicely.
Pirates! Gold 3.5" floppies, DOS, in box w/manual.*
Lords of the Realm II CD, 95/DOS, in box.
The Lost Treasures of Infocom 3.5/5.25" floppies, DOS, in box with maps, guidebook, hintbook.**
(Contains Zork 1-3, Beyond Zork, Zork Zero, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Planetfall, Stationfall, Enchanter, Sorceror, Spellbreaker, Moonmist, Witness, Deadline, Starcross, Suspended, Suspect, Ballyhoo, Lurking Horror, and Infidel.)
Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail CD, 95/DOS, in box.
Tropico CD, 95/97/2000/ME/NT4, in box.
Tropico 2: Pirate Cove CD, 98/ME/2000/XP, in box.
Ultima Collection CD, 95/98/DOS. No box, but map book/reference card.*
Grim Fandango CD, 95/98. CD case only.
The Manhole CD, Win?, CD case only.
Goblins Quest 3 (a.k.a. Goblins 3) 3.5" floppies, DOS, no case (manual & discs only).*
SimCity for Windows 3.5" floppies, Win/DOS, no case (manual & discs only).*
Tetris/Welltris/Faces-tris 3.5" floppy, DOS, no case (manual & discs only).**
* This game is available to download for free on Abandonia.com, so yeah, you probably don't need the hard copy either. Sigh.
** Some (not all) of the games in this set are available free on Abandonia.com.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Happy Year of the Tiger!
For the second year running, the Lunar New Year feels a lot more like a fresh start to me than the, uh, Solar kind. Holiday hassles are a distant memory (the one with the hearts and smooches is not much of a hassle for me), days are getting long enough to have a little elbow room in them, and this whole Way Early Spring thing we've been having in the Pacific Northwest, though it will doubtless have some negative consequences, is really just awfully pleasant.
I put on my beautiful new orange socks and went for a walk on Mt. Tabor today, where I kept running into the same batch of skateboarding teens over and over again. Round another corner, there they'd be, all scruffy and ebullient, scrambling up the hillside or yelling at each other over the rasp of their wheels. It was kind of like my walk in the park had a limited extras budget and so they had to keep using the same people over and over.
My pockets were empty, so I picked a wildflower to leave at the hidden shrine (perhaps you know about the hidden shrine at Tabor? It's appropriate to leave an offering of some sort there, though to whom you are offering is, I think, up to the giver. You can also take something, if you like). There was a baby's shoe there and some pretty stones, but it wasn't as cluttered as usual. I think someone has been tending it. Maybe everybody tends it.
On the way out I crossed paths with my neighbor, the self-designated neighborhood watchman. I quizzed him about his former career as an undertaker while he walked me home. (Apparently the economic downturn has really hit the funeral industry hard. I had no idea.) He also told me about the people who used to live in my house over the years. Seems one of those people was the self-designated neighborhood watchman, years ago; he would sit and look out my front window all day long, just keeping an eye on things. I am grateful for people like that.
In other news, I am apparently one of Blogger's Problem Children, because I insist on hosting my blog on my own webspace instead of at Blogspot, and they don't want me to do that anymore. I'm not super excited about compromising with a redirect URL, as they suggest, so I'm wondering if this is the time to make that switch to WordPress I keep thinking about (you know, so I can gripe about a different service!). I still have a lot more research to do on this, but if you have any input on the usefulness and/or limitations of WordPress, I'd love to hear it.
I put on my beautiful new orange socks and went for a walk on Mt. Tabor today, where I kept running into the same batch of skateboarding teens over and over again. Round another corner, there they'd be, all scruffy and ebullient, scrambling up the hillside or yelling at each other over the rasp of their wheels. It was kind of like my walk in the park had a limited extras budget and so they had to keep using the same people over and over.
My pockets were empty, so I picked a wildflower to leave at the hidden shrine (perhaps you know about the hidden shrine at Tabor? It's appropriate to leave an offering of some sort there, though to whom you are offering is, I think, up to the giver. You can also take something, if you like). There was a baby's shoe there and some pretty stones, but it wasn't as cluttered as usual. I think someone has been tending it. Maybe everybody tends it.
On the way out I crossed paths with my neighbor, the self-designated neighborhood watchman. I quizzed him about his former career as an undertaker while he walked me home. (Apparently the economic downturn has really hit the funeral industry hard. I had no idea.) He also told me about the people who used to live in my house over the years. Seems one of those people was the self-designated neighborhood watchman, years ago; he would sit and look out my front window all day long, just keeping an eye on things. I am grateful for people like that.
In other news, I am apparently one of Blogger's Problem Children, because I insist on hosting my blog on my own webspace instead of at Blogspot, and they don't want me to do that anymore. I'm not super excited about compromising with a redirect URL, as they suggest, so I'm wondering if this is the time to make that switch to WordPress I keep thinking about (you know, so I can gripe about a different service!). I still have a lot more research to do on this, but if you have any input on the usefulness and/or limitations of WordPress, I'd love to hear it.
Friday, January 01, 2010
Been a While, Hasn't It?
Guys, I am so glad 2009 is over. I didn't really like it very much.
My issues with 2009 directly influenced my blogging (or rather, lack thereof), and I am not going into a lot of detail about those issues here. Suffice it to say that any blog posts I could've written in the last 5 months would have involved a lot of navel-gazing and complaints. Those goals I talked about at the beginning of the year, like getting rid of stuff and learning how to build things? Yeah, didn't get very far with those. I've come to dread the "how are you doing" question from folks I haven't seen in a while. I can lie (yuck), or I can be honest about how I'm not really very happy right now (no fun either). As an added bonus, I feel guilty about not being happy, because I have it so much better than many do. Woo!
This isn't fun to write about. I like to report on exciting new things! Crazy schemes that just might work! Amazing sights I saw or experiences I had! Not on how I'm just kind of stuck in my own bleah and not even really taking notice, let alone advantage, of the possibilities around me.
But, y'know, that's where I am.
So, new calendar year? I'll take it! Maybe things will be different. Or maybe not. But it feels like a change, and right now that sounds pretty good to me.
My issues with 2009 directly influenced my blogging (or rather, lack thereof), and I am not going into a lot of detail about those issues here. Suffice it to say that any blog posts I could've written in the last 5 months would have involved a lot of navel-gazing and complaints. Those goals I talked about at the beginning of the year, like getting rid of stuff and learning how to build things? Yeah, didn't get very far with those. I've come to dread the "how are you doing" question from folks I haven't seen in a while. I can lie (yuck), or I can be honest about how I'm not really very happy right now (no fun either). As an added bonus, I feel guilty about not being happy, because I have it so much better than many do. Woo!
This isn't fun to write about. I like to report on exciting new things! Crazy schemes that just might work! Amazing sights I saw or experiences I had! Not on how I'm just kind of stuck in my own bleah and not even really taking notice, let alone advantage, of the possibilities around me.
But, y'know, that's where I am.
So, new calendar year? I'll take it! Maybe things will be different. Or maybe not. But it feels like a change, and right now that sounds pretty good to me.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Camp Stories.
Last week I went to Camp for two weeks. Two weeks in the middle of nowhere with a hundred high schoolers. Two weeks of uncharacteristically cool weather (highs in the mid-70s) for Wisconsin. Two weeks of saying the Pledge of Allegiance in the morning and singing a capella praise songs around a campfire at night. I love Camp.
Here are some Camp Stories.
The day's organized recreation, we were all informed, would involve a 10' red ball, a sandy stretch of the creek about 2' deep, and a no-holds-barred cabin vs. cabin struggle to shove or fling the ball across the opposing side's boundary, ideally while dunking as many of the other team in the water as possible. It was going to be strenuous, ridiculous and probably dangerous. We were sent to change into "crickin' clothes" and then report to the field of battle.
"C'mon, guys," I urged the last two stragglers: shy, awkward girls who reminded me of myself in high school. They lagged behind me with obvious reluctance, much as I would have at their age. I raised my hands dramatically and proclaimed, "Let's get ready to BRING THE MAYHEM."
A polite pause. Then a quiet voice replied, "I don't really like mayhem."
There was mist settling on the road as we headed for the farthest campfire site, a mile and change from the cabins. The sky was cloudy, and dusk slid over us as we trudged into the woods, absorbed in after-dinner conversations. Then, nearing our destination, we caught a glimpse of torchlight through the trees -- not firelight from ground level, but firelight from the tops of poles. "What is that," said Gavin or somebody, and I thought of that scene in "Beauty and the Beast" when the townspeople are tromping through the woods with torches. Then we rounded a bend and couldn't see it anymore. It sat flickering in our minds, an unanswered question.
Shane stopped everyone just before the final approach to the campfire site. He said some things I couldn't really hear, from where I stood in the crowd, and then I heard him shout, "And now I give you... the Festival of Lights!" and someone nearby lit a bottle rocket or something that shot up and crackled into flame right over our heads.
Out on the bluff was not the usual tame campfire, but a sizeable bonfire, with cans full of fire on poles surrounding it: some maybe four feet high, some more like twelve. It was a lot of light and a lot of heat, which was not unwelcome on this cool evening. Still, roasting marshmallows was a challenge. I feared for my eyebrows until Whompy hit on the idea of using a piece of cardboard as a shield. Diane ignored our warnings and the smell of petroleum, and toasted her marshmallow over one of the cans-on-poles. Occasionally another bottle rocket went off from a different spot in the bushes. In the distance, thunder rumbled.
The last bit of trail onto the bluff passed through a sort of doorway of trees and shrubbery. The bluff beyond it had become a room delineated by light: inside was the brilliant fire and the s'mores fixin's; outside in the hazy dark was a truck bearing two large containers of water and paper cups. Thirsty after several marshmallows, I went to get a drink and got stuck on the path, looking back into the room of light, transfixed by the scene: silhouettes of clustered figures, laughter and squeals, fireworks; an extravagance of conflagration, framed and tinted by mist.
Nobody hangs out on the far edge of the creek. It's the shady side, the muddy side, the side where all the trash washes up. But I was bored. All the other staff present were absorbed in trying to retrieve a lost sandal from the depths of the chilly swimming hole with rakes, and the campers were doing campery sorts of things. I like the campers, but it doesn't seem fair to me to just descend upon their activities uninvited: Hi, I'm an authority figure and I'm hanging out with you now, aren't you glad?
So I walked slowly along the far edge of the creek, just looking. At first my eyes skimmed across the steep overgrown bank, registering only stuff, but I gradually settled into the discipline of seeing: water-weed, empty bottle, rotting branch, sapling; round leaf, pointed leaf, grassy leaf. Water strider, submerged pallet, rock, sand, mud, slime. Watch your step. What's under there? What's behind that? If you were a tiny person in a tiny boat, where would you land it? There? Over there? Mossy log, arching ferns, jewel-colored damselflies...
"Hey!" bellowed Nate, splashing toward me; apparently the sandal-hunt was over. "Hey, you huntin' fairies?"
Whisper. Giggle. Thump.
The girls at the far end of the cabin were up to something. Every time someone else moved, they got real quiet. Then, after a minute or two, they'd start again: Giggle. Whisper. Giggle.
What was it, 2 a.m? Should I lie there and wait for them to try to sneak out, or tell them to shut up now? Should I address the situation before or after taking a short walk up the hill to the bathhouse? My head was full of sleepy fog. I wished one of the other counselors would wake up and deal with the situation, but they didn't.
Finally my bladder won out. I sat up, found my slippers, and left the cabin, which was (for the moment) quiet. When I returned, I crawled straight back into my sleeping bag, hoping they had gone back to sleep in the interim.
No such luck. Giggle. Rustle. Whisper. Thump.
I got up and walked halfway across the wide cabin. "There's too much noise going on over here," I hissed. "You need to be quiet and go to slee - "
"Come over here! Come over here!" they whispered frantically.
I took a few steps closer, warily. "What's going on?"
"We heard a scary noise! It was the scariest noise in the world!"
Uh.... "What kind of noise?"
"We can't even imitate it! It was too scary!"
"Now that we're awake," whispered another one, "we think it was just someone sleeping. But it freaked us out, so we all jumped into Christy's bed."
"Okay," I said, reassured by the very lameness of their excuse: surely if they were planning to sneak out, they'd have a more coherent story than that. "Now get in your own beds and go back to sleep."
Much to my relief, they did.
A dragonfly spun itself in circles, adhered to the surface of the water. Probably weak and dying, I thought, but why not? I reached for its long tail but dropped it on the first try, startled when it curled around to grasp my fingers. A second try and it stood on my knuckles, gleaming with beads of moisture.
"What is that?" asked Saul, wading over to look. We both inspected it: it certainly didn't look weak. Wide yellow markings splotched its sturdy black body; its translucent wings were wide and unmarred, and its large eyes shimmered like a hologram. "That's a nice one," he said. As we watched, it brushed water from its mandibles, then shivered its wings delicately.
It was in no hurry to go anywhere. We both stood and watched it silently. Though my gaze was fixed on the insect, I became gradually aware of our position in the landscape: golden-brown water cascading over a low ridge, flowing past a tiny island of sand and our unmoving knees; campers sloshing slowly around us or perched on stones; a backdrop of wooded banks. We were standing so still. That's a thing that doesn't happen to me often at camp, to be so still, so focused, so present.
"I wanna see it fly," said Saul, and I directed a light stream of breath at the dragonfly, to dry it up quicker. Soon it tensed its body and, launching itself from my hand, soared off into the trees.
Here are some Camp Stories.
***
The day's organized recreation, we were all informed, would involve a 10' red ball, a sandy stretch of the creek about 2' deep, and a no-holds-barred cabin vs. cabin struggle to shove or fling the ball across the opposing side's boundary, ideally while dunking as many of the other team in the water as possible. It was going to be strenuous, ridiculous and probably dangerous. We were sent to change into "crickin' clothes" and then report to the field of battle.
"C'mon, guys," I urged the last two stragglers: shy, awkward girls who reminded me of myself in high school. They lagged behind me with obvious reluctance, much as I would have at their age. I raised my hands dramatically and proclaimed, "Let's get ready to BRING THE MAYHEM."
A polite pause. Then a quiet voice replied, "I don't really like mayhem."
***
There was mist settling on the road as we headed for the farthest campfire site, a mile and change from the cabins. The sky was cloudy, and dusk slid over us as we trudged into the woods, absorbed in after-dinner conversations. Then, nearing our destination, we caught a glimpse of torchlight through the trees -- not firelight from ground level, but firelight from the tops of poles. "What is that," said Gavin or somebody, and I thought of that scene in "Beauty and the Beast" when the townspeople are tromping through the woods with torches. Then we rounded a bend and couldn't see it anymore. It sat flickering in our minds, an unanswered question.
Shane stopped everyone just before the final approach to the campfire site. He said some things I couldn't really hear, from where I stood in the crowd, and then I heard him shout, "And now I give you... the Festival of Lights!" and someone nearby lit a bottle rocket or something that shot up and crackled into flame right over our heads.
Out on the bluff was not the usual tame campfire, but a sizeable bonfire, with cans full of fire on poles surrounding it: some maybe four feet high, some more like twelve. It was a lot of light and a lot of heat, which was not unwelcome on this cool evening. Still, roasting marshmallows was a challenge. I feared for my eyebrows until Whompy hit on the idea of using a piece of cardboard as a shield. Diane ignored our warnings and the smell of petroleum, and toasted her marshmallow over one of the cans-on-poles. Occasionally another bottle rocket went off from a different spot in the bushes. In the distance, thunder rumbled.
The last bit of trail onto the bluff passed through a sort of doorway of trees and shrubbery. The bluff beyond it had become a room delineated by light: inside was the brilliant fire and the s'mores fixin's; outside in the hazy dark was a truck bearing two large containers of water and paper cups. Thirsty after several marshmallows, I went to get a drink and got stuck on the path, looking back into the room of light, transfixed by the scene: silhouettes of clustered figures, laughter and squeals, fireworks; an extravagance of conflagration, framed and tinted by mist.
***
Nobody hangs out on the far edge of the creek. It's the shady side, the muddy side, the side where all the trash washes up. But I was bored. All the other staff present were absorbed in trying to retrieve a lost sandal from the depths of the chilly swimming hole with rakes, and the campers were doing campery sorts of things. I like the campers, but it doesn't seem fair to me to just descend upon their activities uninvited: Hi, I'm an authority figure and I'm hanging out with you now, aren't you glad?
So I walked slowly along the far edge of the creek, just looking. At first my eyes skimmed across the steep overgrown bank, registering only stuff, but I gradually settled into the discipline of seeing: water-weed, empty bottle, rotting branch, sapling; round leaf, pointed leaf, grassy leaf. Water strider, submerged pallet, rock, sand, mud, slime. Watch your step. What's under there? What's behind that? If you were a tiny person in a tiny boat, where would you land it? There? Over there? Mossy log, arching ferns, jewel-colored damselflies...
"Hey!" bellowed Nate, splashing toward me; apparently the sandal-hunt was over. "Hey, you huntin' fairies?"
***
Whisper. Giggle. Thump.
The girls at the far end of the cabin were up to something. Every time someone else moved, they got real quiet. Then, after a minute or two, they'd start again: Giggle. Whisper. Giggle.
What was it, 2 a.m? Should I lie there and wait for them to try to sneak out, or tell them to shut up now? Should I address the situation before or after taking a short walk up the hill to the bathhouse? My head was full of sleepy fog. I wished one of the other counselors would wake up and deal with the situation, but they didn't.
Finally my bladder won out. I sat up, found my slippers, and left the cabin, which was (for the moment) quiet. When I returned, I crawled straight back into my sleeping bag, hoping they had gone back to sleep in the interim.
No such luck. Giggle. Rustle. Whisper. Thump.
I got up and walked halfway across the wide cabin. "There's too much noise going on over here," I hissed. "You need to be quiet and go to slee - "
"Come over here! Come over here!" they whispered frantically.
I took a few steps closer, warily. "What's going on?"
"We heard a scary noise! It was the scariest noise in the world!"
Uh.... "What kind of noise?"
"We can't even imitate it! It was too scary!"
"Now that we're awake," whispered another one, "we think it was just someone sleeping. But it freaked us out, so we all jumped into Christy's bed."
"Okay," I said, reassured by the very lameness of their excuse: surely if they were planning to sneak out, they'd have a more coherent story than that. "Now get in your own beds and go back to sleep."
Much to my relief, they did.
***
A dragonfly spun itself in circles, adhered to the surface of the water. Probably weak and dying, I thought, but why not? I reached for its long tail but dropped it on the first try, startled when it curled around to grasp my fingers. A second try and it stood on my knuckles, gleaming with beads of moisture.
"What is that?" asked Saul, wading over to look. We both inspected it: it certainly didn't look weak. Wide yellow markings splotched its sturdy black body; its translucent wings were wide and unmarred, and its large eyes shimmered like a hologram. "That's a nice one," he said. As we watched, it brushed water from its mandibles, then shivered its wings delicately.
It was in no hurry to go anywhere. We both stood and watched it silently. Though my gaze was fixed on the insect, I became gradually aware of our position in the landscape: golden-brown water cascading over a low ridge, flowing past a tiny island of sand and our unmoving knees; campers sloshing slowly around us or perched on stones; a backdrop of wooded banks. We were standing so still. That's a thing that doesn't happen to me often at camp, to be so still, so focused, so present.
"I wanna see it fly," said Saul, and I directed a light stream of breath at the dragonfly, to dry it up quicker. Soon it tensed its body and, launching itself from my hand, soared off into the trees.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
A Tiny Bit More Info.
RowdyKittens gives her own review of the Tiny House workshop here. I heartily second all her enthusiastic comments.
Also, this month's Small Living Journal (online and free) is titled Bureaucracy, Regulations, and Small Living. It features a series of essays addressing a persistent obstacle to small-dwelling life: local laws and codes. Worth reading if you're wondering what you can get away with. With Portland's recent passing of green building code amendments, it's probably now feasible to make a case for small => green => variance-friendly. (Well, easy for a conventional-looking middle-class white person, anyway. *squirm*)
Also, this month's Small Living Journal (online and free) is titled Bureaucracy, Regulations, and Small Living. It features a series of essays addressing a persistent obstacle to small-dwelling life: local laws and codes. Worth reading if you're wondering what you can get away with. With Portland's recent passing of green building code amendments, it's probably now feasible to make a case for small => green => variance-friendly. (Well, easy for a conventional-looking middle-class white person, anyway. *squirm*)
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Remember That Whole Tiny House Thing?
Well, look, here we are at the end of Jroon already. (By which I mean the month. The domain is not going to expire anytime soon.) I did my Jroon 3rd comics a long time ago, but I only just scanned them right now. Here they are. Other, more punctual comics by others can be found, as usual, here.
This is also your reminder, if you needed it, that the 3rd is coming around again soon.
So last week, while catching up with the Tiny House blogosphere (which is anything but tiny, let me tell you), I read an announcement about a tiny house building workshop right here in North Portland... taking place in just a couple of days. Ai yi yi, I almost missed it! It was with Dee Williams, who built a teeny trailer-mounted house five years ago and has lived in it ever since. Here's a great video about Dee and her house.
The workshop was Super Great. Dee and KT, a professional carpenter, taught us how to safely use a number of power tools, and over the course of a Saturday led us through framing, sealing, and insulating the floor of a little house on a trailer. It was pretty much exactly at the level of learning I needed (i.e, for those with little to no construction experience). Plus it was great to meet some folks who are fairly serious about constructing their own tiny domiciles. And by "fairly serious" I mean "pretty much for sure going to do this thing." I brought my camera to the workshop, but when I realized how vested some of the others were in documenting the process (with way better cameras than mine), I was like, aw, go for it, guys. And they didn't disappoint, either. Check out the impressive photoset collected by tiny house blogger Rowdykittens (she and her husband drove all the way from Sacramento for the workshop)!
A few words about my own plans. I still think this is a great idea, but I haven't got all the logistics worked out, and I'm not committing to anything yet. So you'll all have to be in suspense with me about whether or not I actually wind up living in an oversized dollhouse on wheels. The workshop shifted my understanding of the building process from nebulous scariness to specific kinds of scary, which, though it may not sound like much, is a significant step toward making it happen.
Dee's house is like a little chapel, airy and cedary-smelling. The narrowness of the walls makes the open ceiling seem really high. It actually has the feel, to me, of a sacred kind of place. But no plumbing, very few possessions. As much as I love it, it's not quite what I want. I really want a sink and shower in my home, and I have no desire at this time to reduce my belongings to quite that few. (It's taken me almost six months to get rid of 1/3 of the 300 books I plan to part with before the year is out.) And my lifestyle is unlikely to look quite like Dee's. I need a little more space, a little more clutter, a little more "cush." But seeing how someone else does this tiny house thing makes it easier to visualize how I might do it.
Which is, um, pretty exciting.
This is also your reminder, if you needed it, that the 3rd is coming around again soon.
So last week, while catching up with the Tiny House blogosphere (which is anything but tiny, let me tell you), I read an announcement about a tiny house building workshop right here in North Portland... taking place in just a couple of days. Ai yi yi, I almost missed it! It was with Dee Williams, who built a teeny trailer-mounted house five years ago and has lived in it ever since. Here's a great video about Dee and her house.
The workshop was Super Great. Dee and KT, a professional carpenter, taught us how to safely use a number of power tools, and over the course of a Saturday led us through framing, sealing, and insulating the floor of a little house on a trailer. It was pretty much exactly at the level of learning I needed (i.e, for those with little to no construction experience). Plus it was great to meet some folks who are fairly serious about constructing their own tiny domiciles. And by "fairly serious" I mean "pretty much for sure going to do this thing." I brought my camera to the workshop, but when I realized how vested some of the others were in documenting the process (with way better cameras than mine), I was like, aw, go for it, guys. And they didn't disappoint, either. Check out the impressive photoset collected by tiny house blogger Rowdykittens (she and her husband drove all the way from Sacramento for the workshop)!
A few words about my own plans. I still think this is a great idea, but I haven't got all the logistics worked out, and I'm not committing to anything yet. So you'll all have to be in suspense with me about whether or not I actually wind up living in an oversized dollhouse on wheels. The workshop shifted my understanding of the building process from nebulous scariness to specific kinds of scary, which, though it may not sound like much, is a significant step toward making it happen.
Dee's house is like a little chapel, airy and cedary-smelling. The narrowness of the walls makes the open ceiling seem really high. It actually has the feel, to me, of a sacred kind of place. But no plumbing, very few possessions. As much as I love it, it's not quite what I want. I really want a sink and shower in my home, and I have no desire at this time to reduce my belongings to quite that few. (It's taken me almost six months to get rid of 1/3 of the 300 books I plan to part with before the year is out.) And my lifestyle is unlikely to look quite like Dee's. I need a little more space, a little more clutter, a little more "cush." But seeing how someone else does this tiny house thing makes it easier to visualize how I might do it.
Which is, um, pretty exciting.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Sunday, May 03, 2009
The Wake.
[This is not the post with the comics.]
This weekend I went back to my alma mater to say goodbye. It was the final commencement before Cascade College closed its doors, fallen victim to Tough Economic Times after only 15 years of existence.
Cascade was my employer for nine years, my first post-grad-school job and the longest I've ever worked anywhere. But before that, Cascade College was the school I graduated from, striding down the aisle between tall House and taller Hill, all of us proud members of the first graduating class of our institution. And before that, it was a dream realized, the reincarnation of the well-loved but financially disastrous Columbia Christian College.
Columbia was where I lived my first year of college life. It was a magical place, and I don't mean that hyperbolically. What I mean is, things happened there that defied my understanding of how the world works. Big things, beautiful things. Oh, it was doomed even then; we were warned before we showed up to campus that the school might lose its accreditation that year. But people still came, such was the reputation of the place. I believe there were around 100 students that year, which is quite a few if you consider that the total student body never got much above 400 at the best of times.
And the people who came... well, they weren't ordinary people. Most of the staff and faculty were pretty much volunteering their time at that point, waiting on deferred paychecks that they knew might never come. The quality of instruction varied, but more than a few of the professors were remarkably gifted, and every last one of them cared deeply about the students. And the students were talented, passionate, funny, warm and radiant people who welcomed all 10 or so freshmen with open arms. It never would have occurred to me that people who were that cool would want to be my friends. But that was never in question. Insightful as these people were, they were apparently blind to the heavy cloud of social stigma that seemed to shadow my secondary school years. They didn't recognize that I was a born outcast. As far as they were concerned, I belonged.
And for me, that changed everything.
The students were why Cascade happened. They were determined that this was not the end, and their enthusiasm, commitment, and hard work fueled the process that led Oklahoma Christian University to take a gamble on a west coast campus. While I went off to a year of school in Nebraska (which had a similarly profound effect on my development, but that's another story), many of my colleagues set aside academic progress, stayed on campus, and worked to rebuild, recruit, and give life to the dream we shared. And the next fall, when I came back, O mirabilis, there were classes on my campus again, and all the employees got paid.
The story of the next fifteen years is more or less the story of any organization that begins with high ideals and pure intentions. People came and went, some of them the better for their time there, some of them not. Decisions were made that had good and bad repercussions. Cascade was many things to many people; it was even many different things to me. It was a cause to which I rallied, an experiment in the unlikely, an ongoing collision of ideals and reality, a place to grow, a place to struggle for and against, a place that meant so much to me that when it was time to leave, it took me years to see it. The one thing it was not was a failure. We all wanted that institution to grow, thrive, and bless the lives of generations. But in a decade and a half, it managed to do an awful lot of good.
I was not at Commencement, but I was there for many of the weekend's events. There were so many amazing people, so many kinds of relationships represented: my professors and my students, my classmates and colleagues, acquaintances and close friends and used-to-be close friends, and an embarrassing number of people whose names I could not for the life of me recall. The buzz of so many greetings, so many hugs and how-are-yous ran counter to the aching awareness that we were there to close a book, to put a body in the ground. Several people told me things like "It doesn't seem real" or "It hasn't hit me yet." I nodded. During the last chapel, in an auditorium packed with people singing old hymns and new in rich four-part vocal harmony, I was conscious of the distance I put between myself and what was happening, of choosing numbness over being really present and open. Sometimes I forget how good I am at this. Curious to see if the emotion was still there or had dried up completely, I eased open the tap just the tiniest bit, and spent the next several minutes feverishly trying to shut it off again. It will hit me when I let it.
There is a thing I believe about God, though it is not a thing I have found anywhere in the Bible. It is that no service done for him, no sacrifice made in his name, is wasted. It may be flawed in a thousand ways; it may be more ridiculous than useful; it may be an utter failure or even cause real harm. (I am not describing Cascade with any of this.) But I believe the gifts we offer to God are received by him in their imperfection, as we also are received by him, with infinite grace, with welcoming compassion, and with a joy beyond our capacity for it.
This weekend I went back to my alma mater to say goodbye. It was the final commencement before Cascade College closed its doors, fallen victim to Tough Economic Times after only 15 years of existence.
Cascade was my employer for nine years, my first post-grad-school job and the longest I've ever worked anywhere. But before that, Cascade College was the school I graduated from, striding down the aisle between tall House and taller Hill, all of us proud members of the first graduating class of our institution. And before that, it was a dream realized, the reincarnation of the well-loved but financially disastrous Columbia Christian College.
Columbia was where I lived my first year of college life. It was a magical place, and I don't mean that hyperbolically. What I mean is, things happened there that defied my understanding of how the world works. Big things, beautiful things. Oh, it was doomed even then; we were warned before we showed up to campus that the school might lose its accreditation that year. But people still came, such was the reputation of the place. I believe there were around 100 students that year, which is quite a few if you consider that the total student body never got much above 400 at the best of times.
And the people who came... well, they weren't ordinary people. Most of the staff and faculty were pretty much volunteering their time at that point, waiting on deferred paychecks that they knew might never come. The quality of instruction varied, but more than a few of the professors were remarkably gifted, and every last one of them cared deeply about the students. And the students were talented, passionate, funny, warm and radiant people who welcomed all 10 or so freshmen with open arms. It never would have occurred to me that people who were that cool would want to be my friends. But that was never in question. Insightful as these people were, they were apparently blind to the heavy cloud of social stigma that seemed to shadow my secondary school years. They didn't recognize that I was a born outcast. As far as they were concerned, I belonged.
And for me, that changed everything.
The students were why Cascade happened. They were determined that this was not the end, and their enthusiasm, commitment, and hard work fueled the process that led Oklahoma Christian University to take a gamble on a west coast campus. While I went off to a year of school in Nebraska (which had a similarly profound effect on my development, but that's another story), many of my colleagues set aside academic progress, stayed on campus, and worked to rebuild, recruit, and give life to the dream we shared. And the next fall, when I came back, O mirabilis, there were classes on my campus again, and all the employees got paid.
The story of the next fifteen years is more or less the story of any organization that begins with high ideals and pure intentions. People came and went, some of them the better for their time there, some of them not. Decisions were made that had good and bad repercussions. Cascade was many things to many people; it was even many different things to me. It was a cause to which I rallied, an experiment in the unlikely, an ongoing collision of ideals and reality, a place to grow, a place to struggle for and against, a place that meant so much to me that when it was time to leave, it took me years to see it. The one thing it was not was a failure. We all wanted that institution to grow, thrive, and bless the lives of generations. But in a decade and a half, it managed to do an awful lot of good.
I was not at Commencement, but I was there for many of the weekend's events. There were so many amazing people, so many kinds of relationships represented: my professors and my students, my classmates and colleagues, acquaintances and close friends and used-to-be close friends, and an embarrassing number of people whose names I could not for the life of me recall. The buzz of so many greetings, so many hugs and how-are-yous ran counter to the aching awareness that we were there to close a book, to put a body in the ground. Several people told me things like "It doesn't seem real" or "It hasn't hit me yet." I nodded. During the last chapel, in an auditorium packed with people singing old hymns and new in rich four-part vocal harmony, I was conscious of the distance I put between myself and what was happening, of choosing numbness over being really present and open. Sometimes I forget how good I am at this. Curious to see if the emotion was still there or had dried up completely, I eased open the tap just the tiniest bit, and spent the next several minutes feverishly trying to shut it off again. It will hit me when I let it.
There is a thing I believe about God, though it is not a thing I have found anywhere in the Bible. It is that no service done for him, no sacrifice made in his name, is wasted. It may be flawed in a thousand ways; it may be more ridiculous than useful; it may be an utter failure or even cause real harm. (I am not describing Cascade with any of this.) But I believe the gifts we offer to God are received by him in their imperfection, as we also are received by him, with infinite grace, with welcoming compassion, and with a joy beyond our capacity for it.
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