It’s a wrap for February.
1st March 2013 | 101, camp arnold., everyday life, friendlies, Year of Challenge, zoothousand13 | 4 comments
Well crap… February’s over. I hardly blogged. I didn’t do everything on my February list.
Mostly that’s because there was a significant change in my life that took up a lot of my energy and time. I started a new job, as the Youth and Creative Ministries Director at my church. It takes me awhile to settle in to new things… but I think I’m starting to get the hang of it.
I updated my February list. And I’m not about making excuses, but do you even realize how hard it is to find raspberry extract? It’s nowhere! And I made the mistake of waiting on other people to walk across i5 with me, so my plans for that were always depending on someone else… so it didn’t end up happening. Guess that’s getting added to March. And that whole getting a job thing put a pause on Nashville.. but let’s not even talk about that, or I’ll get sad.
And. Let’s be honest.
I consciously gave up on 365. I have yet to figure out a groove for this. Any veterans have any advice?? Or is it one of those “you just DO IT” things? Probably.
So anyway.
And usually when I don’t blog for awhile it’s because I’m doing stuff and I want to share it, but I feel weird exploiting every good thing in my life the moment it happens. I like to keep things to myself and cherish them for awhile.
{2} So does Ellen
{3} …who is the cutest.
{4-6} Me and Graham, who I am more honored to know as each new day passes.
But now I have to go write 1,000 words… since that’s my March thing.
frozen.
21st January 2013 | camp arnold., faith. | 2 comments
June 25, 2012
Day one of summer camp is upon us. The camp is filled with the sound of children singing and laughing and it feels so right. Camp is not about quiet, dormant seasons. It has them, and beautifully, but right now, camp is what it was made to be.
There are so many familiar little faces running around camp; Jazzy, Amanda, Kateresa to name a few. I have plenty of small friends who give me love and joy and through whom I see Jesus.
The sun is out and my spirits are high even though I am wearing the first of many staff shirts that match everyone else.
~ SO
This weekend I went to the young adult retreat at camp and thought about that journal entry as I was driving. I thought about the cold, hard ground and the chill in the air. The big tree without its leaves. The barren field.
And I cried for the campers. The thousands I’ve been at camp with, and the thousands yet to come.
I wish camp could be year round so that in the cold winter, when your hands get chapped and your lips are dry, we could drink hot chocolate and sleep in cabins with the heaters on. The cold would make it impossible to run around outside, so we’d have to stay in the safety of our cabin groups huddled together for warmth. Not just physical, but emotional and especially spiritual.
Yesterday I wondered how many campers from the past summer would spend any part of their weekend in tears. How many of them feel alone, lonely or deserted. How many of them are grateful for a new year because they have not yet been to camp for 2013. There’s something to look forward to.
When I got to camp, I quietly went to the Lake. It was covered in ice, and I wept.
It is important for us to all enter into “the dark night of the soul,” a time of crisis and emptiness in our faith.
It is important.
Christ had a dark night of the soul while he carried a cross to be hung on. A time of abandonment, a time when no sun shines and the still waters freeze over and we are chilled to the bone.
While I poked the lake with a stick, I realized the sun was warm on my arm.
It was a BEAUTIFUL day. The radiance of the sun still shone. The ice on the lake did not negate the warmth and power of the sun.
The same can be said for us in our irrational seasons. The temperature may drop, the ground will freeze and leaves will fall.. but just beyond the fog that slows us and the clouds that cover us.. is the sun.
In due time, the sun will break through. The ground will soften. The lake will melt. Leaves will sprout.
And then it will be June 25th. We will walk into the rightness of a moment that needed the wintering season to be appreciated.
So thankful for what God teaches me on the white bench by the lake.
{015/365} unpacking.
24th August 2012 | 365, camp arnold. | 0 comments
if there’s anything i suck at a lot, it’s unpacking. okay… and packing, but mostly unpacking. here’s why. when you pack, you’re like.. “SOMETHING IS COMING.” and you’re putting each article of clothing or pair of shoes or whatever it may be in your suitcase, dreaming up what it will be like when you wear it. the people you’ll meet, the memories you’ll make. and when you unpack, you go back over things that have already happened and fold them back in your drawer and those things lose their magic.
maybe i’m weird, but i have a super emotional attachment to clothes. well, memories that happened in clothes. and taking my clothes from the drawers at camp and putting them back in my still-new-to-me ikea dresser feels like that chapter has really come to an end. life will carry on as normal again.
at camp we talk about campers coming to camp with “invisible backpacks” – issues that are burdening them that we need to help them unpack. and as i thought about unpacking my clothes, books, papers, memories… i thought about my invisible backpack and everything i’d also need to unpack from that.
my frustrations. my heartbreaks. my disappointments. my plans. they don’t have a dresser to be neatly folded into. instead, they are this massive pile of dirty laundry, torn up books and random hair ties that sit at the foot of Jesus. “help me!” is all i can ask of him. i have so much in my heart and on my heart that i just need to go through with Jesus. and despite the implications of that sentence, they’re not all bad. i have great things to go through with him. but i just can’t do that unpacking on my own.
i always come back from camp with more than i arrived with. in my suitcase and my invisible backpack.
{013/365} goodbye.
21st August 2012 | 365, camp arnold. | 0 comments
…that’s all.
{012/365} what’s ahead.
18th August 2012 | 365, camp arnold., faith. | 0 comments
there’s only four of us left here at camp, and when i got back today nobody was around. i put on some cozy clothes and listened to music. i wrote about how i love the lake at camp arnold, but you know what else i love at camp arnold? the a-frames. due to the fact that the a-frames are considered “boystown,” i don’t get to live in them often. my first year as a camper {20 years ago!} i stayed in an a-frame, and so my first memory of camp arnold is the a-frames.
last night i had a long talk with my dad about life, about my fears and worries.
after years of trying to figure out what God would want me to be doing in 5 or 10 or 15 years, i decided to give up. every day i long for God to rescue me from the prison of time and the heartache of the world. although the world is so beautiful and lovely and full of so many wonderful things, it hurts to love people. madeleine says, “the more people we love, the more we are liable to be hurt, and not only by the people we love, but for the people we love.” i hurt because i am human and people i love are humans and we’re all broken and though we can offer healing touches in words, art, food or time.. we also do a lot of damage.
often my desire to pass from this world to the next is selfish and irresponsible. it is an escape route from the journey of faith i’m on. i relate to the words the apostle paul wrote to the church of philippi while he was in jail {though i am not in jail nor is execution on my horizon right now}, saying that to live is Christ and to die is gain; that he desired to depart and be with Jesus, which is better by far, but that he knew in his heart he would remain on the earth.
preach.
and so here i am.
i gave up on figuring out what God might want me to do in the future, and i have given up on dying or end times as an escape. instead i’ll just take it a day at a time and trust that so long as my eyes are on Jesus, i’ll at least be heading the right direction.
while i’m excited to see what new things God has for me once i leave camp, i’m anxious.
today as i was driving back to camp, i realized that these jonny lang lyrics perfectly summed it up:
“i’ve been running this road for the first time. sure like to know what’s ahead.”
{010/365} – gingers.
18th August 2012 | 365, camp arnold. | 0 comments
this week i have been spending a lot of time with a bunch of red heads. mostly because emily is {#1} my best friend and {#2} the one who makes coffee, and because the camp director’s family are THE CUTEST. just look at those eyes!
{009/365} hurricane
18th August 2012 | 365, camp arnold. | 0 comments
so the past two weeks we’ve been in the kitchen doing the dishes, and in the kitchen is this giant bowl affectionately called the hurricane, used to hold massive amounts of salad. and you know what that bowl looked awesome for? POPCORN.
and john said we could! SO WE DID! and everyone watched sherlock holmes. well… they watched sherlock holmes and i wrote down funny quotes in my phone, but i got tired so i put my sweatshirt on {backwards, might i add} and then i laid down before giving up and going to bed early.
{008/365} the dock of the .. lake.
14th August 2012 | 365, camp arnold. | 0 comments
since i was a young child i’ve always said that disneyland is the second happiest place on earth; camp arnold is the first. but if we were to zoom in that thought a little more, i’d have to say that the lake at camp arnold is my happiest place on earth, especially when i am left alone with God. i’ve had moments of peace, like ten years ago when i was supposed to give my testimony and i woke up early to sit on that bench and figure out what to say. that bench was also the scariest moment of my life, when the stars made God feel so far away and i shouted out into the night “where are you, Lord?” and the silence and lack of peace that followed spun me into a panic, feeling like i had been abandoned and forgotten. the next day God poured onto me this truth – I NEVER LEFT. BUT YOU NEVER QUIETED DOWN TO LET ME TELL YOU.
today i picked blackberries and then walked down to the lake for BEing time. i watched the fish swim and tried to talk to the ducks and saw a snake slither away. then i sat on the dock of the lake and wrote in my journal, enjoying the sabbath of doing absolutely nothing and knowing that God loves me no more than when i toil and labor to be a good girl.
sometimes i feel crazy for loving a place as much as i love this camp, but then my heart breaks a little for people who do not have a safe haven like this.
{006/365} last minute
13th August 2012 | 365, camp arnold. | 0 comments
a few days ago, emily and i left and i asked if she had her camera. she said “no, but i have my ipod.” and i said ipod/phone pictures didn’t count. she asked why and i, in typical myself style, said “they just don’t.”
but yesterday i sang a different tune. our day was pretty busy and then i stayed at the nottle’s watching the closing ceremony {HELLO, SPICE GIRLS!} and didn’t get back to my cabin until it was time for bed. and as i was about to snuggle into bed, i realized “I HAVEN’T TAKEN A PICTURE!” and my camera was in a different room. so i grabbed my phone and took a picture of the last thing i see before i go to bed. it’s like my night stand, i guess.
it is an absolutely beautiful day here at camp arnold and i am excited to live it.
{003/365} aug 9
9th August 2012 | 365, camp arnold. | 0 comments
we were sitting on the bleachers, watching the side by side kids launch their rockets when we heard a little tiny ding noise and emily, upset, exclaimed that she she had dropped her earring in the tall grass under the bleachers. braden went to look for it, and none of us were really supportive of him. and then a few moments later he popped up with this held between his fingers. he’d found emily’s earring! that is skill.
then i was hit with the need for BEing time {as madeleine l’engle calls it}; to just sit and exist and rest and be quiet. so i grabbed the book i’m currently reading {and it was good, by madeleine l’engle} and decided to sit behind the chapel, because i have never done that. mosquitoes did a fantastic job of eating me, so although i enjoyed my few minutes behind the chapel, i might have to go back to the bench by the lake as my BEing place.
