Turn Around

So I half apologize for my catastrophic mess blog from a few weeks ago because it was probably a little bit excessively dramatic. But I only half apologize because that was how I was feeling and I was expressing myself authentically and I don't regret it. Mostly, I just hope it didn't bring you down.

At any rate, I am feeling a lot better this weekend. The week right after that low, we had the best group of campers ever to be in the highlands. They managed to be the most polite, respectful, thoughtful kids without being personality-less zombie suck-ups. Generally when Audrey and I get to the camp site to start the fire and get breakfast things ready, everyone is still sleeping and the counselors are just waking up, but that week, one tent of guys got up every morning so early that by the time Audrey and I got to the site, they were all dressed, had cleaned their hogan (the kind of platform tent we have) thoroughly, and were sitting around the log circle quietly conversing. We would pull up in the bus and they would greet us at the door to ask if we needed help with anything. The entire group of campers were this way every day, all week long. They all listened to directions the first time around and were incredibly creative and hilarious. They included and encouraged each other really well and none of them were homesick.

During the camp week I sometimes teach campers different kinds of knots. Generally half the kids get bored or frustrated in the first five minutes because they all learn at different paces and there is only one of me to help each one. This group took to them well and one of the campers made a see-saw out of a log, a tree, and two of the knots he learned.

They knew when to be quiet and when to be crazy, we went rock-climbing on the very first day and they quickly learned how to trust each other and trust us. And we trusted them.

I dunno. It was just what I needed. So refreshing. I'm feeling worlds better.

This past week was all boys. One of the counselors told the guys that for every bug they ate during the week, I would eat one as well. I ate two giant crickets the size of my thumb covered in chocolate. And then a bunch of other smaller bugs. Mmm, protein. :)

This upcoming week is Mudapalooza, my all time favorite program in the highlands. I've been stirring up the mud pit all week long and I'm so excited.

Laundry Chutes

They say you learn something new everyday.

Today I learned that laundry chutes have been made illegal. This is bogus. Sometimes there are laws that kill more joy than anything else. That is definitely one of them. 

The Catastrophic Mess Inside Me

Six weeks into the summer at camp and the living space of my soul feels unkempt and foreign. I am frustrated because I don't get to interact with the kids in the creative ways I loved best when I was a counselor. I am tired because I work with children all day and don't ever get enough sleep at night. I am sad because I am part of a program that causes me to be segregated a lot of the time from the rest of the community on staff. I am angry at myself because I can't seem to will myself to love and have grace with the person I work with every day as well as I would like to. I feel pressured because of the mistakes I have made at work and feel like I just cannot do a good enough job in my position. I am sick because I finally caught the plague that has been going around since staff training started 5 weeks ago, but don't have time to rest and really get better, so I trick myself into thinking I am better than I actually am. I am confused and unhappy because I don't have much time to spend in quiet and with God, and the few moments I get to spend alone, I don't even have enough energy or will to talk to him because I just need the silence and solitude to even function. I feel guilty because on the weekends my family and friends want to see me and do things - and I want to want to do things with them because I love them so much, but I don't really want to do anything because I am so incredibly drained that all I want to do is be as far away from people as possible and sleep and stare at walls and not think or feel or anything. I feel stupid because I want to talk to one of my bosses about the way I am feeling, but I can't really express why I feel the way I feel or what exactly it is that I feel, so it all seems so petty every time I think about talking to him. I feel longing for my Camden and the life I lived when I lived there. I long for the privilege of time and space to know and contemplate and understand my thoughts and emotions and actions. I long for the people I love to feel loved well by me. I long to feel like I've had enough sleep on a regular basis. I long for my family and friends to heal from their brokenness and find relationship to mend their loneliness.

Sometimes I feel as if my soul is a room that God and I share. It's a space to go where we alone can go. I like my room and like to spend a good deal of time there. I've gotten to know its intricacies and learned how things work and where they are. I've grown fond of it.

This summer has had plenty of beautiful moments. I am learning a lot. There are kids and adults both that I have the opportunity to love every day. It is good. I do not regret where I am and I want to be here. It's just that currently, I am experiencing the pain of feeling like the room has been neglected. It is dreary looking and has cobwebs in the corners. I am not so familiar with it as I once was, and that scares me.

I cried twice this weekend and did not know why. I think that is why.

Gaga

During my time off today I made a GaGa court with Diane, the craziest, most amazing 62 year old lady in the world. (She gave me a piggyback ride the other day.) If you don't know what GaGa is, you should do something about that.

I only had about 20 hours off for the weekend and didn't think it'd be a very restful way to spend my short amount of time off, but it ended up being better for my soul than I thought and I'm so glad it happened. We probably sweat the entire water content out of our bodies and we made our fair share of stupid mistakes, but we peed our pants laughing about them and it was just wholistically fun. :)

What is Justice, Really?

There's this guy that I know that recently went to prison and his maximum term is life. He's in there for killing a girl. I thought about it a lot when the news was fresh and everyone was up in arms about what he did, but I keep thinking about it periodically. It's weird, cuz he was in my math class in high school and we did trig together and laughed about random things. I thought he was a pretty cool person. Normal. Made some stupid choices sometimes, but not any that were uncommon for a high school senior.

It's been three-ish years since I've interacted with him, but I can't imagine he lost all humanity in that time. Yet during his trial, instead of weeping for the victim like everyone else, I couldn't help but let my heart weep for him. Don't get me wrong. What he did was very wrong. That girl's life was so precious and it is incredibly sad and unfair that she died at the hands of such rage. But without invalidating that, I felt like she was getting so much defense and support and he was getting none. My soul ached for the absence of love and forgiveness.

Speeches during the trial that ripped up one side of him and tore down the other. Hate groups on facebook created by all of his victim's friends. Ruthless, relentless, unfeeling attorneys. People calling for the death penalty. Comments that drove spears of bitterness deep into him.

This boy has been called a monster and a killer. Is he? Is that who he was born to be? Is killing, hating, and destroying all he is capable of?

Something in me screams so loudly against the kind of justice that returns wrong with revenge, hate with hate, death with death. If death, hate, and revenge are our reply to the broken things of this world, where is love supposed to begin? If we always wait for the next guy to live with love and forgiveness, the world will only sink deeper into the hole it is in while we all wait for what we ourselves are not willing to give. What if instead, we returned reckless hate with reckless love? What then?

When children are young, parents often discipline them when they do something wrong. Every now and then, a child steps so far out of line or gets so out of control that they need a time out or in some cases, a spanking, to catch their attention. This is the consequence of their actions -- the punishment.

But hopefully, if a parent is doing things right, they don't just stop there. Following the consequence there is usually a conversation to be had about what went wrong, why it was wrong, what could be done differently, and maybe how that situation could be fixed. And then at the end of it all, a second chance is given. The most important part of this discipline process was not the time out or spanking. It was the period of learning and growing afterward.

As I think about this boy, this man, this child of God that just has a lot of bad marks -- I am saddened. I am saddened because he is part of a system that acts as a perpetual consequence without offering much opportunity for growth or learning, and no one wants to give him a second chance. This system has the power to teach him that he IS a monster and a killer and that is what defines his life and why he is where he is, why he does what he does, why he lives the way he lives.

Mulling over his life, his worth as a human being, his trial, and the criminal "justice" system he has now entered into, I have realized this:

Punishment is not the teacher. It is merely the tool for helping a person get to a point where they are ready to be taught.

Does a life sentence leave any room for real, restorative justice?

Discovery

For the past four days I have been working at camp getting the site ready for staff training and a whole slew of summer campers. A few of us took on big tasks around the site like putting in waterfront docks, shoveling out old wet and moldy leaves from the perimeter of a basketball court, setting up hogans (kind of like platform tents, but not), painting, powerwashing, weed-wacking, mowing, organizing, moving, etc.

It was so good to put in long days of really physical work. There were moments when the group of us just collapsed on the ground under heat and exhaustion, but in the long run, it felt great to use our bodies for the kinds of work that they were made for. Running on a treadmill or sitting on a stationary bike inside an air conditioned gym just doesn't do the same things for your soul.

While we were cleaning out a storage cabin, we discovered that the cabin had become a bed and breakfast for all sorts of creatures over the winter -- rugs were chewed up, hammocks dumped on, craft supplies shredded. As we were cleaning out our archery cabinet, a mother mouse scurried out after realizing we were cleaning things out. She left behind six babies, only a day or two old. We picked them up and put them in a safe spot where we hoped she would find them again... one can only hope that's what happened and that they didn't become dinner for a feral cat or racoon. Either way, they were so adorable. Naked, translucent, blind, and helpless, I saw so much vulnerable beauty in their tiny bodies. :)

Then this morning our camp chef, John, pointed out a family of birds out learning to fly. I love this place.

CAMP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah. That's where I'll be for the summer.
<------Doing this.

So if I blog a bit less, that would be why.

Matthew Scott Pieper

So I had this friend named Matt.
He was a kick ass friend.
Matt was a messianic jew,
Who smoked lots of pot
And spent hours doing html coding for fun.
He loved lots of people
And lived real simple-like.
Except for when it came to wine,
Which he was real particular about.
He introduced me to all my favorite jam bands
And Julia Nunes.
We were going to go to Bonnaroo someday
And eat brownies and sell grilled cheese and kool-aid
To hippie moms and dads and babies.
Matt died last year.
Today's just a day for remembering.