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I’ve only just gotten back, so don’t (yet) expect anything grand or altogether beautiful; don’t expect good things or bad things; don’t expect anything but the truth, as abstract as it may be. As I begin my story, the story of the last six weeks, I must admit I’ve been utterly hypocritical, for though I warned you to expect nothing, I myself went into camp with expectations. I expected to have an emotional time (I didn’t); I expected to grow closer to God the way that you normally would at camp—a mountain-top experience with a slight fall afterward (there was no mountain for me there); I expected to change lives (and I learned, or re-learned, that only God is the changer of hearts).

 

I’m out of writing practice so this will all be very sloppy and rather poorly written, which is a travesty, but I need to start processing things as soon as I can. Here I go:

 

Though I expected those mentioned things above, I came into Pine Cove with a large number of prejudices, prejudices that I’ve had with me for a while, prejudices against the North-Dallas, upper-middle class, white, fraternity/sorority types, prejudices against the South and against the semi-conservative nature of things down here in Texas. Before I start out with camp, let me give you a few-month’s-prior-to-camp history.

 

The second semester in Iowa City was, to even put it modestly, euphoric. Words cannot describe how much I learned about grace, about myself and about the world, about God and people and the way things work, about love. I discovered that I had truly been given the church of my dreams in Iowa City; I discovered a man ten years older than me who taught me life’s secret; I discovered a community of believers who lifted me up, who realized that it’s okay to cuss and love God at the same time, who realized that Obama isn’t the anti-Christ, who see that the Christian life is about fruit, who know that faith without works is completely dead. It was a wonderful semester. It was fantastic to be away from Texas. Blissful.

 

And then I came back to Pine Cove.

 

East Texas.

 

Conservative.

 

Cross-heavy and lacking in emphasis (to my understand) on the resurrection, on hope and the fact that we were noble before we were sinful. Not once did I hear “Imago Dei”—Hunter, you are created in the image of the living God, the “Father of Lights” as James says. I believe in original nobility and secondary sin. I believe this: In the cross we find mercy, in the resurrection—grace. It’s not that I disagree with the faith statement of Pine Cove (I agree one hundred percent); it’s that I think they focused too much on one thing and not the other.

 

I disagreed with a few focus-related things about Pine Cove, and with the gender roles they play and definitely the America-fondling nature of things there, and I was blinded by my petty trifles. For the first three weeks (orientation and weeks one and two), my selfishness inhibited my ability to live carpe diem, to live in love, and to live with the very gospel that I myself preached: the gospel of the resurrection and of salvation.

 

But things began to change Thursday night of week two.

 

Let me interrupt briefly to say thanks to the following people, without whom I couldn’t have made it through camp:

 

Opa!

Tatt

Rafiki

Davey

Silly Rabbit

Bow Thai

 

I would have been screwed without you.

 

Back to week two. So, I’m walking back to my cabin after a frustrating Bible-study type of thing (called “Cake ‘N Stake”), and I’m semi-angry with the fact that I just read a section of a book claiming to preach the “gospel” that had absolutely no reference to the resurrection. I’m walking with Opa! and we aren’t saying anything but we both know we want to say something. We part and I get to my campers, who are getting ready for that night’s theme night, and I start to cry. Damn it.

 

I wept and met with Opa!, and he had someone take my cabin and we talked for an hour or maybe more. I don’t remember it perfectly. I was struggling with my prejudices. I was struggling with the fact that I felt lonely, with the fact that I hated being back in the south, with the fact that I didn’t love being around all the smiles that I thought were mostly bullshit. I felt lonely and alienated and deserted and purposeless (I think that the feeling of purposelessness is one of the worst feelings in the world, and it goes hand-in-hand with the feeling of not being loved). It was all pride and selfishness; I only realize that now. It was like being high-school Hunter all over again. It sucked. I’m sorry, Pine Cove staff who had to deal with that. I wasn’t being the Hunter who left Iowa in May, the Hunter who lives now and loves now. Ah!

 

I spilled a lot to Opa! I spilled most of my story, all of my frustrations regarding Pine Cove and myself. I missed Iowa. To all you Midwesterners out there, I love you and you are amazing. I missed my church and the friends I had made. I told him quite a bit. Deflated. Emptied. It was a beautiful thing. There was an empty cabin. We sat on the edge of one of the beds. I had bronchitis. I was stopped up. I was sobbing. He put his arm around me and hugged me. He cried a little but not much. He prayed for me. It was a soul-molding experience. Thank you, John. Also, the washing of the feet. Thank you.

 

After that night things changed—I saw that even people from Texas A&M had stories; I saw that even people who were in a fraternity or a sorority could be deep and intellectual. I know it’s a silly thing to put large groups of people (or even single people) in boxes, but it might life easier in some ways, but I needed to learn that that was wrong. God showed me my pride.

 

I could go on and on about the last three weeks of camp, not about how great they were (they were good but not great), but about how much I learned and how—even after the night with Opa!—they were hard. But I might do another post on that. I’m just going to wrap this up by saying a few things that I learned:

 

1.        I need to be me wherever I am.

2.        Depression is in my life to stay, or at least a melancholy overtone, and I am perfectly okay with it, because I know how to deal with it—by giving it over to Him.

3.        (As a writer I should have known this but—) Don’t put people in boxes; everyone has a story; everyone has potential. If you truly want to engage humanity, leave your prejudices behind.

4.        Love and live in the present. Carpe diem.

 

 

1st John 4:19

7 words.

Live it.