Happy Independence Day! Yesterday was such a blast! Independence day is a high-spirited celebration of the many things that make our country so beautiful and great — starting with one another. Both camps came together at a co-ed day of games and fun for the afternoon. After a big cookout dinner and songs in the evening, each of the camps settled down separately for an evening of fireworks, human fireworks (a long standing camp tradition that involves star-spangled counselors doing acrobatics from the diving board and slide), and games. God bless America!
Today we stepped back into the routine of a normal day at camp. One thing I love about camp is the pace of life here. “There is no blessing in hurry” is a Swahili proverb that I learned on a mission trip in high school; camp is a place where there are many blessings… and not a ton of hurry. There is the opportunity to be intentional with one’s time, to learn new skills and build new friendships, but there is also a rare thing that we don’t see much of in the world these days: margin. There is margin enough to play, to laugh, to learn, to pray, and generally just to waste time together. Wasting time with another person is an incredible way to grow in friendship or to say I love you. In fact, another saying goes that, “idle hands are the devil’s playground,” but in the modern world I think that is a proverb Christians need to rethink. Christians need to be willing to build in margin to their days so that we can waste time with others and be able to live the gospel by having the wiggle room in our days to help a neighbor and sit with a friend. We need to be willing to waste time together.
What’s more, in our attention driven economy, we need to be willing to risk the unimaginable: boredom. Boredom is something we rarely see these days because it is so easy to scroll or turn on a show or pack our days full of too many extra-curriculars. But I dare to say that our modern fear of boredom is something we need to reckon with. Boredom isn’t a penalty; boredom is an invitation to creativity. Boredom is a blessing.
At camp we embrace margin, wiggle room, and boredom. We find boredom doesn’t last long because as people get to know each other they grow more interested in learning about one another. Caring about another person opens a vast world to explore and we learn that it is almost always better to be interested in others than interesting.
As a camp director there isn’t always the same slow pace of life and easy wiggle room, but I just have to say again that I love the pace of life here. I am so delighted to be surrounded by such incredible people with whom I can tackle boredom and waste time.
Our prayers go out to the people and camps of Central Texas impacted so sorrowfully by the recent devastating floods. We have heard from many of our camp families as they have reached out to check in on us: we are, of course, fine here. Nevertheless, our hearts are heavy for them. Please join us in lifting them up in our prayers.
