Camp

I am at camp right now.

No matter how anxious I am whenever I head up here, it mostly dissolves away once I arrive. Granted, this is the most wary visit I can ever remember. And I haven't talked to or seen Mr. Director Man yet. And I feel like I'm tiptoeing around people.

But still, these people, collectively, are my favorites.

TVR In Fall

Over fall break, while many were headed home to enjoy the company of their families, Joel and I turned our faces to mountains, a departed for a weekend-long adventure at TVR.

Let the record show that the reason I did not go home is that my family was away from Charleston and would not be back until Sunday night, therefore leaving me only 1.5 days to possibly be with them.

It was nice to be at camp for the first time since summer. It was definitely later than I usually go up there. I was hoping to get up there sooner, but, alas, Winthrop had different plans for me.

For anyone who is wondering, fall is the most beautiful time of the year at camp. The lush, full greens you experience during the spring and summer were mottled with a lovely assortment of reds, oranges and yellows, as you can see from Plow Point:


In addition to awesome autumn-ness, there was also snow. That's right. While Joel and I were on Plow Point, there was literally snow flurries coming up the mountain, hitting us in the face. That sucked a little.


Also, I got to hit up Alliance for church on Sunday, even though we didn't get to hear Scott Andrews speak because it was their missions festival this past week. Got a chance to talk to him, and he recommended RTS for seminary, said he took some classes there. Pretty sweet, yo.

All in all, a good weekend. It was fun to hang out with everyone and Joel, seeing as the group was only 9 people. Running the top of the tower was cold. Greg was out because of surgery, but he's back now. I am somewhat anxious to get back up there.

Of Broken Arms

I broke my arm. It's taking me dang long to write this post with one hand. For this reason my posts this summer are probably going to happen hardly at all. Sorry. I know you are all greatly disappointed.

Here's a picture of the injury in the hospital, before it was set:

Of New Beginnings to Old Ventures

Today I leave for camp. I am a new man of sorts, I hope. Last summer was a horribly unproductive affair due to my divided attention between plenty of petty idols with a little sliver of care for God.

A friend recently told quoted to me a mantra: "If you don't think of something in your power as a possibility, then it will never happen." In this specific context, I do not want to keep living in my current state of unproductive Christianity, and I even more specifically do not want to have another summer like I did last year.

So now, I am ruling it out as a possibility. Your prayers are desperately desired.

I am going to try and update this once a week, we only have free time on the weekends for the most part, so we'll see how that goes.

If you would like to write me mail, then let me know.

The Pursuit

Even if I don't end up going to TVR to work this summer, I'm super stoked about the theme: The Pursuit, based out of II Timothy 2:22:
"So flee youthful passions, and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with all those who call upon the Lord with a pure heart."
There is so much theology in that one verse, it blows me away.

The one thing I do love about this verse is that it particularly points out that the Christian walk is a difficult, not taken lightly task...it [hopefully] will let the kids know that it is not easy, and that it does take work.

Now, if I could just preach that to myself.

Sprinkles On The Asphalt

I wrote this one about camp, for camp. I love it, a lot. If you want to know what camp is all about, this is definitely a good place to start.

This also ends the period of my semi-apprenticeship in poetry, after this point is where I really began to dig into what it means to write a good poem, and to be a poet.

"Sprinkles On The Asphalt"

Not one second less than four-teen hours ago, this pavement was bare!

Where O where did all these sprinkles on the asphalt come from?

That question can be answered only by what happened a few seconds less than four-teen hours ago:

One hundred-fifty-plus excited little tweens and teens came screaming up the road:

Whoa they're sure excited about a bunch of silly games and a pointless competition-cheering-high-

low-volume-stick-cutoff-yarn-around-the-wrist-is-our-alliance created only to ensure fun was had the past six days.

Unhindered by such silly thoughts they fly up the the pavement to get their reward for all their hard work those six silly days:

A bowl, Styrofoam, containing two small scoops of plain old vanilla ice cream.

But plain it remains not for long as this throng of excited little tweens and teens begins to decorate and consecrate their reward with all types of ice cream toppings:

Reese's some prefer, or there were also a lot of Maraschino cherries tossed on,
But one topping was thrown on nearly every bowl: sprinkles.

And as one might expect a herd of one-hundred-fifty-plus excited little tweens and teens to do, the sprinkles are inevitably flung and trampled upon the asphalt.

The irony of this situation is...that in just a few seconds later than four-teen hours from the flinging of the sprinkles (and the subsequent trampling of the same),

All the physical proof that will remain to indicate their pure unadulterated excitement and the experiences of the week will be just that:

sprinkles on the asphalt.

All that their counselor--friends invested in them this week, you may seek to find physical proof of, but you will find naught but sprinkles on the asphalt.

The marks their God-creator-lover-friend put on their heart are far from the view of any physical-viewing-device,

Eyes cannot witness or describe the work their Father in heaven has begun in them those six silly days at camp.

Only in the ways they go home to show this work by their works can one work to see the work their good God has begun in them.

Of all the things they have been shown, how God has made himself known by his deeds and his great love, no eye can see and no ear can hear.

So if you're seeking here to see what was done this week, then venture elsewhere you must because the only empirical evidence of this week left here at camp,

is Sprinkles on the asphalt.