Christmas Week at Camp: July 2024

In future years, when I wonder why I wasn't writing as much, let me remember that I was doing a lot of baking, from yesterday's lemon blueberry tea cake

to today's Christmas cookies for camp counselors:

I made a lot of cookies, which means lots of rolling out, lots of decorating.  It was both fun and exhausting.

It's Christmas week at camp, and it's one of our weeks to deliver camper mail.  This week, we have a lot more mail, so it's another task that is fun while we're doing it, but it leaves me worn out at the end of the day (and at the end of this week).

But I'm happy to be able to be of use in this way.  When we moved here, I hoped I would have these kinds of opportunities.

Rainy Day Baking

It is a rainy Thursday here in the mountains, and I'm not complaining.  I've always said that if it's going to be extremely humid, I'd rather the humidity fall out of the air as rain than stay in the air and make life miserable.

The rain makes me want to bake, and I might.  After all, I need to deliver a batch of Christmas cookies for counselors tomorrow.  But I'm really wanting to bake a batch of lemon yogurt muffins.  Since I no longer have a muffin pan, I might make it in a loaf pan.  And since I have blueberries, I might add those too.

In two weeks, I report for the pre-Fall semester meetings at Spartanburg Methodist College, so part of me thinks, let me bake while I have time, while it's rainy, while I have the ingredients.  Any time I'm commuting to work, and it's raining, I find myself yearning to be at home baking and drinking hot tea.

Insert a baking interlude here.

I took my own  advice and now there is a lemon blueberry loaf in the oven.  Lovely!

As always, part of my brain says that I should be out walking.  If I don't get my walk in the morning, I'm much less likely to go.  But another part of my brain knows that starting in 2 weeks, I will have so  few mornings like this one.   I will put more water on to boil for more tea, while I wait for the lemon blueberry loaf to be done.

Seasons Colliding

It's been one of those strange weeks where all the seasons collide.  I went to a farmers' market on Saturday and returned with summer seasonal treats: peaches, tomatoes, and corn on the cob from the Mills River farm.  They all turned out to be winners.  Monday I made a peach cobbler (actually more like a pie really, lattice crust and all).

Yesterday I saw candy corn and autumn mix in the stores for the first time--I bought those because I felt such a surge of longing.  Fall is surely on the way, and I see a yellow or red leaf here and there.  I'm trying to stay present in this summer season.

This week has been rainy, an interseason of sorts.  The nights are cool-ish, moist, but we've slept with the window opened anyway.  Some nights, it's been perfect.  Other nights, I've woken up, damp-haired, wishing for dehumidified air.

This week is Christmas in July week at Lutheridge, the camp that contains the residential section where I live.  This week and next, I'm delivering camper mail.  Yesterday my friend brought us fun headbands--at the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville, we called these "deelyboppers."  

One of my favorite memories of this summer will be driving through camp in the golf cart of a neighbor with Christmas music blaring.

Yesterday I returned the golf cart and walked the short distance back to my house.  Thundered rumbled, and a bit of rain fell, and I breathed in deeply of the smell of hot asphalt and steaming rain.  Delightful!

This morning, I made this tweet, which delighted me in a different way:  "Here for #5amwritersclub, here to write about the joys of peach cobbler for breakfast, the peach cobbler that was in the icebox, but no one was saving it for breakfast but me. (I am no William Carlos Williams, nor was meant to be, but I do love literary allusions!)."

Disciplines: Hoping, Walking, Writing

If you came here hoping for a meditation on Mary Magdalene on her feast day, this post on my theology blog is for you.

If you came hoping I could make sense of the political situation for you, there are plenty of other professional types who are making that attempt.  

I am sure that future me will look back and wonder why I didn't write more about the fast changing political situation.  I will say that I was both shocked/surprised and not shocked/surprised.  I felt this strange wave of sadness, perhaps because there's something about Biden that reminds me of my dad; they're both older, slim men, both slowing down, both having given a lifetime of service to country and community.

I do think that if Biden had continued to run, he would have lost.  I know that the future is uncertain, but Democrats have a better chance of winning now.  I like all of the Democratic options for President and VP, but I know that over half of the nation won't share my feelings.  What I don't know is who will show up to vote and what they will be valuing in the Fall.

When we returned from church and the two hour drive across the mountains, I had thought I might not go for my daily walk.  But then the announcement came about Biden dropping out of the race, and I wanted to visit the sacred places at camp.  Off I went to the chapel and the lake, and I returned feeling better.

Yesterday afternoon, I thought, well, here's my next poem:  Cassandra Stops Predicting Politics.  I'm not sure where the poem would go, but I wanted to record the inspiration here.  If I write these ideas down, I'm more likely to return to them.

Rabbi Rachel Barenblat posted this picture, an important reminder:

It so inspired me that I went to the website to order some reminders of my own and to support a social justice group.

Let me shift gears.  I need to get back to my practice of a daily walk, and I'm much more likely to get that done if I go out first thing in the morning (and by first thing, I really mean between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m.).  Let me go again to the sacred places at camp.  Let me enjoy the decorations along the way; it is Christmas in July week here at Lutheridge.  Let me pray and let me hope.

Late Summer and Cassandra Poems

I look at the calendar in a bit of shock this morning; I only have two full weeks of summer left.  Where has the time gone?

In some ways, it's been a wonderful summer.  We've gotten to see family and friends.  I've done a variety of creative activities.  I took a seminary class that left me wishing we could have some additional meeting time.  We went to a state park in Arkansas that was beautiful--the perfect amount of travel (and I am so grateful we've managed to stay out of airports).  I've met regularly with my quilt group that makes quilts for Lutheran World Relief and volunteered at Lutheridge, the church camp.

We're at the point of the summer where I think, wait, why didn't I do more?  I could have written a novel.  I should have written more poems.  I could have gotten poetry packets ready to submit when those elusive submission windows open in a month or two.  The one writing practice that I keep faithfully is blogging, and yet I rarely say, "I continued my blogging practice all summer!"

I love going back in my blog to see what I was doing last year, or the years before.  Occasionally, I discover an idea for a poem that I forgot I had.  And even more occasionally, I discover a rough draft that doesn't need much work to become a finished draft.

I have been writing a lot of Cassandra poems--what happens when a modern Cassandra sees her prophecies coming true?  Last summer, I was working on a poem about Cassandra volunteering at summer camp during a time of climate change; singing about Noah building an "Arky, arky" takes on a different tone.  

This week, I finished a poem about Cassandra coloring her hair.  Once I might have worried that I was writing too many Cassandra poems--what would it mean for a longer volume of poems?  Now I'm happy to be writing at all.

I'm in the mood to write a brand new poem.  Let me see if Cassandra speaks to me this week.

A Week in Sticks and Snippets

It has been quite a week, and I don't mean just the assassination attempt and a Republican National Convention.  My week has been consumed by my volunteer work at Lutheridge, the church camp, where I was the C3ARE leader who does Bible study for the week. I had a co-leader, but it was still exhausting trying to engage 55 middle schoolers.  The campers were doing the Night Owls program, which lets them stay up very late at night, so it's been an adjustment for them.  Wednesday they were lethargic, but there was more energy yesterday.

Let me make a quick list of memorable moments from the past 4 days:

--Yesterday was a good day with the middle school campers.  We reviewed the stories we read, both the Bible stories and the illustrated books.  We went outside and had them create a response that represented their favorite story out of things they found outside (stressing that no destroying of nature could happen, no ripping of plants).  Two groups used sidewalk chalk that they found outside.  Several groups used a combination of sticks and rocks.  One group used the logs in the firewood storage bin.  Two groups did a skit.  It was great.  It built on what we did on Tuesday, and it reminded me that they are paying attention, even when they seem surly and/or lethargic.

--I've enjoyed the meals with other C3ARE leaders; it's been great, getting to know how others are living out their call.

--I've been thinking about camp and about the huge Lutheran youth gathering in New Orleans that is also happening this week.  I've been thinking about how we educate, train, and inspire the next generation, a topic that is so different when we talk about the theory and when we try out those theories with real humans.

--A lot of us work in schools during the school year, so we've had lots of discussions about classrooms too, which is both interesting, but after awhile, tiring.

--It's also been a week of reuniting with people I already knew but don't get to see often.  It's been wonderful, having something else to think about beside the political news and the folks I know with troubling health news, reminders that I am not getting younger.

--I'm also thinking of Biden contracting Covid-19 again.  Will this moment be a turning point when we look back?  Will he bounce back from this infection as he has the others?

--It's also been a week of deaths of famous people, some of whom were very important to me in my younger years, like Bernice Johnson Reagon and Bob Newhart, and some of whom were not as much, like Shelley Duval and Shannon Doherty.  There were very public people, like Dr. Ruth and Richard Simmons, who died this week.

--Yesterday was also the day of confirmation of a rumor that I heard earlier in the week:  my former school, City College (the Florida version, not the famous one in NYC) will close.  There's an announcement on the website about staying open for fall and winter quarter to help students finish, but they're also looking at other options.  I predict that students will be switched to online versions of programs, and that will be that.  I've been feeling a lot of emotions:  happiness that I'm no longer part of that school, sadness that yet another once-solid school has been run into the ground, wondering what the real story is (who buys a school to run it into the ground?  was there another scenario happening?  was it all a land grab?).

Today is likely to be another long day, so let me shift gears and get a walk in before the pace quickens.

Camp at Midweek

It has been a whirlwind week, in some ways.  Working with middle schoolers at camp leaves me more exhausted than any other experience so far this summer, and in fact, it may be the single most exhausting thing I ever do.  It has its peak moments, like Vespers on Monday, and its low points, like leading the group through Bible Study yesterday.

We are in Bischoff Lodge, which is the unairconditioned large gathering building that is part of the Wilderness cabin area.  We have 55 middle schoolers, 9 counselors, one area director, and the two of us leading the group.  That's A LOT of people for a space that's not designed for that many people.  And did I mention that it's not air conditioned?

On Tuesday, we had them go outside and see who could build the tallest, most secure structure out of materials that they could find (think sticks, branches, stones).  They seemed to have the most fun doing that, and it was the time when most of them were most engaged.

It was quite a contrast to yesterday, when they were listless and sullen.  I looked at the group as my co-leader was reading the story book, and I could not point to one who was engaged.  Maybe they were, and I just couldn't tell.  But I doubt it.

The curriculum involves a different story book each day, the kind of book that would be popular with first or second graders.  I'm not sure it's the best choice for middle schoolers, but mine is a minority opinion.

This morning, we'll try something different.  We'll send them outside to create something out of materials that they find--a sculpture, a 2 D picture--that represents one of the stories we've read together, either the Bible stories or the story books.

Tomorrow morning they assemble the final art project, a paper lantern, made of frames made of popsicle sticks, to make 4 square sides, and paper that's like parchment paper that one uses to line baking sheets.

I feel a bit of despair that we haven't done a good job.  I think we've done our best with what we've been given, but it's hard to believe that any campers are leaving enriched by our experience together.

Or maybe I'm being too hard on myself.  Our Vespers service felt like it was more meaningful, and we've had a few moments in our morning teaching that seemed to break through the lethargy.

I always tell myself that it's hard to know what really takes root, and we won't know.  But I'm pretty sure that nothing took root yesterday.  I hope today will be different.