Before leaving Winnipeg in April, I was asked by several people “What does camp in Kansas look like?” My response at the time usually involved describing camp as hot, sandy, and filled with poison ivy and ticks. While I sit here—fighting the urge to scratch the bumpy red poison ivy blotches and sunburns covering my legs—I can confirm the accuracy of that response. However, after our first week of campers, I believe the answer requires a few more details. So, what does camp look like? For me, physically, camp looks like late morning sun beating down as the four-lane turns to two before the turn off onto a red dirt road. It looks like Bluestem—an overnight rental I have spent hours cleaning—greeting me before my face breaks into a smile at the old wooden sign proudly displaying “Camp Mennoscah.” It looks like a winding road between locust trees and tall grass, past the maintenance shed and the “alert zone one” that automatically plays in my head each time as I drive past. It looks like walking trails that move through catspaws, purple poppy mallows, and prickly pears; sandstone buildings with red trim; and sun-bleached cabins with built in bunks covered with the names of campers who have slept there. Camp looks like a sandy river with overgrown banks and a dam that slows time as its rushing water drowns out noises. Camp is a dining hall with a covered shelter attached, an A-frame for crafts, a swimming pool, ball fields, a retreat center, several staff buildings, and a large wooden whale. Yet that only begins to describe the mere physical appearance of camp. The description’s incomplete nature begs the question, “What does camp look like in a day?” For campers, camp looks like a wake-up bell followed by devotions and breakfast. Singing, input (bible study), and interest groups such as canoeing, soccer, hair braiding, and/or ultimate spoons fill the morning. Lunch looks wild with shenanigans such as singing, limericks, goofy skits, and snail mail. Campers then get time to sleep and/or rest before swimming/nature and/or crafts split by pop break and followed by more free time. After supper the whole camp joins for recreation such as river play, borrow the balls, or trio (a combination of sock dodgeball, tag, and kickball), before evening singing, snack, cool down, and campfire. Chores are also completed at some point during the day and there are occasionally late-night activities. As a staff member, camp looks like groggily shutting off my alarm, slipping into shorts and a cut-off, and watering the garden on my way to breakfast. It looks like mornings filled with compost and kitchen trash, dusting the outside of buildings, weed whacking and occasionally leading interest groups as I think of limericks for lunch. It looks like afternoons of tending the nature center critters, completing my chores and/or maintenance tasks, and leading groups on nature sessions before joining in on the staff meeting. After supper, camp looks like more compost, recreation, and checking in with the other summer staffers before campfire. Dishes are interspersed throughout the week as is spending as much time as I can with campers. Yet these descriptions, too—as realistic as they are of the fullness of a camp day—only serve to offer an answer based on time spent. They continue to limit camp to what can be visibly seen with the naked eye. Camp, however, looks like so much more. Camp takes seriously the idea of being a fool for God. Goofy skits and silly songs weave their ways throughout the camp week; some meals are accompanied by wild costumes and others by no silverware; and weird t-shirts featuring space cats, tropical patterns, and unicorns are not only accepted but praised. In this foolishness, we expose our weirdest selves to loving strangers that become friends. (Side) hugs, friendship bracelets, and sweet notes are all ways campers and staff share God’s love and acceptance with one another. At camp, agape love and acceptance of our sweatiest, goofiest selves becomes God-love and acceptance of our saddest, darkest, most vulnerable selves. In this state of hospitable welcoming of self, camp overwhelmingly looks like one thing: grace. To me, more than anything else, camp looks like grace. It looks like the grace that is accepting an apology when someone does me wrong. It also looks like the grace of admitting that I am not perfect and I sometimes owe apologies. Camp looks like the grace of loving another person despite their brokenness and despite my own brokenness. Camp looks like allowing the grace that is the beauty of the natural world to wash over all my anxieties and for long moments grant me peace. It is the grace of nourishing my body with salad, fruit, and homemade sourdough and nourishing my soul with no-bakes and scotcheroos. It is the grace of cleansing sweat, long hours, and completion of jobs well done alongside the grace of pausing during a chore to watch a deer cross camp at sunset. It is the grace of resting for a moment, taking a deep breathe, and just being. Above all, it is the grace of accepting others fully and without limitations and it is the grace of knowing that I too am loved and accepted the same.
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Elizabeth SchragAdventurer. Biblical and Theological Studies major. Borderline Vegan. Rebel with a cause. Archives
March 2017
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