We are thrilled to share this blog from Anthony Benton , a current counselor at Chosatonga who has been coming to camp since he was seven years old! Following his summers as a camper, Anthony served on paddling and mountain biking staff, as well as being a leader for the Junior Counselors. Tony plays the guitar and violin, and enjoys sharing his love for music with campers and staff throughout each summer. In this blog, Tony portrays the relationship between virtue and beauty at camp and highlights how important this relationship is to the “camp way.” Enjoy!
When I was growing up, sitting in a classroom for eight hours a day didn’t inspire me much, if at all. Occasionally though, I had a teacher who taught with true passion, which made school more interesting and rewarding for me. I still have fond memories of those favorite teachers and don’t think I fully realize how much they’ve impacted my thinking. All this to say, I think being a counselor at camp is similar to that. At the end of the day, our job is to be a teacher that has a lasting impact on our campers.
I remember a camper I had one summer at Chosatonga — we’ll call him Bartholomew. At home, Bartholomew wasn’t the most outdoorsy kinda guy, opting mostly to spend his time playing video games. In fact, I don’t remember if we could even get him to do his swim test at the start of camp, complaining that the water was too cold. After a few weeks though, the spirit of adventure rejuvenated his soul. One day as I was walking next to the lake, I noticed him climbing up the high dive. “TONY!!… TONY!!!…. Watch this!” Running full speed ahead, he launched into a front flip ten feet above the murky depths below. Being unaccustomed to such acts of courage, I didn’t quite know how to respond as warm pride began to fill my soul.
What impressed me about Bartholomew wasn’t the flip, as I’ve seen many impressive acts of daring acrobatics initiated from the high dive before. Rather, I was impressed by the multiple acts of courage that inevitably led up to his flip; whether it was the swim test, his first time off the high dive, or his first time doing a front flip. Each time fear gripped him, he had to respond with courage. Anyone could understand him responding with fear and backing down, and I’ve seen many talented, athletic campers walk away from similar challenges out of fear. But nobody would disagree that Bartholomew’s act of courage was awesome and praiseworthy. Is there any other way to describe this than beautiful? And is this not just true for courage, but as well, for the other virtues?
The ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle, had a different concept of virtue than what we are accustomed to. To Aristotle, virtue wasn’t simply a list of “do’s” and “don’t’s”; instead, it described what it meant to live a beautiful life. He compared virtuous living to playing an instrument, saying that if we learn to play the instrument well, we will produce beautiful music. Similarly, if we learn to live well, we’ll produce a beautiful life.
This relationship between virtue and beauty becomes extremely clear at camp. Not only are we surrounded by the towering evergreens of the Pisgah forest, but we are surrounded by individuals living with courage, temperance, and kindness. It’s as if we are ina forest of virtue. When I think about the people who have inspired the way I live, I can’t help but think about men at camp like the Justin Bennetts, Mike Crosbys and Jeffrey and Adam Trufants of this world. Their passion and love for life is infectious, and I couldn’t help but want to be just like them. Camp is a place where I come to learn from the experts on how to live a beautiful life. Our hope as a staff is to inspire each other to live well and in turn, to inspire the campers to do the same. This is how we teach virtue at camp. It’s also what sets us apart from other camps that also teach skills like mountain biking, paddling, and climbing. The camp mission “… to plant seeds in the hearts of campers and staff that will help them grow towards a thriving and whole-hearted adulthood” permeates the “why”, and the deeper motivation to what we do.
I love how camp’s mission fits neatly into an analogy that St. Louis de Montfort used to describe our souls, saying that they are like gardens that we maintain through prayer. What this means is that when we cultivate our prayer life, God grows and orders our interior life, which is the basic necessity of living a virtuous exterior life. Without prayer, weeds of resentment, selfishness and dishonesty begin to creep in, constricting our soul and consequently affecting the camp community and whatever community we happen to be a part of. However, when we strive for prayer and virtue, God turns us into something beautiful– a well-ordered garden so to speak. We then begin to experience a joy for life that others inevitably notice. It comes out when a counselor goes all out on a dinner that he prepared for a camping trip. It comes out when a counselor brings a shy camper into the competitive spirit during an epic game of Braveheart; and it comes out in the echo of counselors and campers alike, singing their hearts out to God in a chapel packed full.
The “camp way” is not mountain biking, and it’s not paddling, and it’s not any other outdoor activity. Those are just skills and experiences that help to build a camper’s confidence and love for adventure. The camp way is doing everyday activities in a prayerful, virtuous and beautiful way. And this is only made possible through faith: the understanding that nothing we do matters when compared to the promise of eternal life in Heaven. I believe that our greatest accomplishment at Kahdalea and Chosatonga is when a camper walks away with this knowledge. If we can plant this seed, then maybe they will leave confidently, trying to bring this little slice of Heaven to the rest of the world.
