Camp is a strange duck.<\/p>\n
At home we tell our kids to chew with their mouths closed and to finish all their peas. At school we tell them to keep the\u00a0talking in the lunch room at a “Level 2” and their backs against the seats on the school bus at all times. But at camp…at camp we teach them the “cup game” wherein an entire table full of nine-year-olds pound their cups in a deafening synchronized glory as fast as is humanly possible. We challenge them to watermelon eating contests and tell them that the record for eating french toast is 26 slices. On the camp bus we urge them to shout out songs like “Bill Grogan’s Goat” and “Jesus Got Heaps of Lambs” and the bus driver is much more likely to scoff at the volume\u00a0they achieve assuring\u00a0them that last week’s kids were twice as loud,\u00a0rather than shush them.<\/p>\n
Camp is the Platypus of children’s environments.<\/p>\n
I volunteer at my sons’ school once a week and I absolutely love it. I love the crafts and the reading and the encouragement and watching my boys zip through math pages that would make me pause and frown. But I’m so glad that there is also camp.<\/p>\n
Yes indeed, there is a golden place nestled up in the mountains where if your children\u00a0don’t put\u00a0their napkin on\u00a0their lap someone is going to sing at\u00a0them and make\u00a0them run around the cabin right in the middle of lunch. And if\u00a0they don’t capitulate and bow to napkin propriety…they will be running the whole meal. There is a place where\u00a0they must sing for\u00a0their mail if it is in a colored envelope and\u00a0they must dance if\u00a0they get a package. Where if\u00a0they want to fill someones sleeping bag with packing peanuts or completely switch every item in the Squirrel cabin with every single item in the Chipmunk cabin, all\u00a0they have to do is gain permission from Scruffy or Choco and get\u00a0the prank onto a\u00a0lengthy list of pranks for the week.<\/p>\n
And there is a place where God is so incredibly real. Where\u00a0a child\u00a0has\u00a0their very own quiet time for the first time ever, sitting in the sunshine on the rough wooden boards of the lodge porch. Where\u00a0they ask\u00a0their counselor to pray for\u00a0their cat and\u00a0their parakeet and their\u00a0great aunt Matilda and\u00a0their broken family and\u00a0their\u00a0shattered heart. Where\u00a0they sing weird songs and loud songs and praise songs that make\u00a0them cry. Where\u00a0they look outside and see God, not just because of the gorgeous trees and sky and mountains, but also because of the camp counselor\u00a0who walked\u00a0them down the path to the bathroom at 2:00am because it was too dark and let\u00a0them sleep with the counselor’s own\u00a0flashlight clutched tight in\u00a0their little\u00a0hand.<\/p>\n
Camp is a strange duck, a wild and rambunctious place that is a little bit hard to explain to those who do not know it, but a lovely creature all the same.<\/p>\n
Boo Boo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Camp is a strange duck. At home we tell our kids to chew with their mouths closed and to finish all their peas. At school we tell them to keep the\u00a0talking in the lunch room at a “Level 2” and … Continue reading