Yesterday I went for my morning walk and went by the dining hall in the minutes before breakfast, when all the campers wait outside. I heard this chant/shout: "We love Jesus, yes we do. We love Jesus, how 'bout you?" Then another group chanted/shouted the same thing back, only louder. It was both a challenge between cabins/groups and a way of keeping kids occupied until the dining hall was ready for them.
Some might say, "Yes, and it was also indoctrination!" Perhaps. We might be kinder and say it was theological training. But it seems less a way of mind control than a way of keeping kids focused and out of trouble while waiting to go into the dining hall.
Yesterday was the kind of day where there was lots of shouting in the news cycle. Lately, it seems like every day is a day of lots of shouting in the news cycle. I reflected on the purposes of shouting: drowning out competing voices, keeping people focused, raising people's emotions for good or evil purposes.
When the news cycle shouts at me, I often turn off the TV/radio/internet site. Yesterday, listening to children chanting/shouting outside the camp dining hall, I was charmed and wanted to linger.
But it's not my week of volunteering, not my week to enjoy breakfast at camp. And so I rambled onward, picking a few berries out of the brambles on the downslope of the hill that took me away from the dining hall.
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