Sermon

Sunday, July 26

Reflection on Summer Camp

I returned late last evening from 15 days at St. Stephen’s Summer Camp in South Carolina. At this moment, I am experiencing a wide range of feelings. I feel depleted, thankful, renewed, scared, inspired, and upset all at the same time. This is the 9^th summer that I have directed the summer camp for the Metropolis of Atlanta. When I first directed it back in 2001, it was held at a place we rented for only one week. Since 2004, we’ve held it at the Diakonia Center, a camp and retreat center in Salem, South Carolina, which is owned by the Metropolis of Atlanta. The program has expanded—this year it is being held for four sessions for the first time.

Most of us are familiar with the word “limit”—we have speed limits as an example. Our bodies have limits also. When I go to camp, it is certainly not a vacation—I enjoy camp, but I work hard there—often sleeping only 3-4 hours a night. So, even though my heart wanted to do as much camp as possible, my head tells me that 4 weeks of camp, pushing limits physically and emotionally is not a smart idea. So, with the camping program going four weeks, I decided to run two of them and have someone else run the other two. I am physically depleted. I am sore in more places than I can count. I’ve got some bruises from the ropes course I run while at camp, and a good share of bug bites. I am also a little bit sad, because I know there are two more weeks of camp going on up in South Carolina and for the first time since 1999, I won’t be participating in every minute of camp this year.

I am thankful. I told the campers that the first prayer I said while at camp was a prayer of thanksgiving, that I lived to see another year to come to camp as the camp director. Nothing in this life comes with guarantees. It seems that many people are getting sick and dying at younger ages. Last month in a sermon, I talked about the word normal or natural. Most people take the things we do every day for granted, like eating, breathing, having a place to live, and walking. But these are blessings—Eating is normal for you, but the patient in the hospital who can’t eat would see eating as a blessing. Most of us don’t give walking a second thought, but for the guy who has no legs, he’d give anything to walk. How many of us thank God each day that we can breathe? How many breaths each day are used for ungodly things? Yet for the person who clings to life, breath is the most important thing on their minds. And how about having a place to live—how many people thank God that they own a home? Many complain that they are losing money on their third and fourth homes or their rental properties. Having a place to call your own is a privilege because many people do not. So, as I arrived at camp, and throughout the two weeks I was there, I felt very thankful and privileged to be there. There is no guarantee I will go back. It was a privilege to enjoy God’s nature for two weeks. It was a privilege to see the stars in the heavens each night in a way that you cannot in Tampa. The other evening, one of the priests who enjoys astronomy pulled out a telescope and I saw the planet Jupiter with four of its moons in clear view—that was awesome, to see the details of a planet millions and millions of miles away from us. I work harder these two weeks than I do any others during the year. Mentally I’m exhausted, physically I am exhausted.

At the same time I am happy—because I’ve also laughed more the past two weeks and cried more the past two weeks than I have all year. I used all of my emotions and I used them a lot. I’m trying to see all things in life, both large and small, as blessings, rather than taking them for granted. As I left camp yesterday, the last thing I did was kneel at the altar in our outdoor chapel up there and thank God for bringing me there for another year, and ask that He bring me back again in health and in joy next year.

I am renewed. The camp program promotes spiritual renewal for the campers—we make them unplug for a week—no cell phones, no ipods, no rap music, no text messaging. You realize that your average teenager spends 70 hours a week hooked into electronic media. That’s well over half of their waking hours. You realize that rap music is filled with images of inappropriate sexuality, violence, anger and hate and most of them listen to rap music a lot. At camp, there was no electronic media and no rap music. Instead there was a lot of liturgical music and contemporary Christian music. In one of the more inspiring moments I have ever had at camp, I group of campers spontaneously started singing a camp song together. This particular song is sung half by the girls and half by the boys—it is called “Go where I send thee” and is about taking the message of God to the world and trying to get to heaven. Usually, the boys and girls stand on opposite sides of a room and sing the verses to each other. In this particular case, the girls were in the middle of the woods and sang the first verse. The boys responded from the soccer field, over 100 yards away and out of sight of the girls. They sang/shouted the whole song from this distance, not seeing each other, until the last verse, when they spontaneously started running towards each other, ending up in a large circle singing together.

I can’t remember the last time I threw a water balloon, but I threw plenty this summer. A camp Olympics and an obstacle course competition we called “ultimate camp warrior” were also fun highlights of the week. Thursday is confession day. The priests of the camp sit in our outdoor chapel for about 10 hours and listen to the confessions of the campers. Last Thursday was brutal—first it was hot—about 95 degrees—and the air was sitting still. Wearing my black robe and stole over my clothes, it was hard for my body to breathe. Fighting sleep and fatigue was another constant battle—I had to throw cold water on my face several times as I tried to stay awake. Sitting still for 10 hours is a real challenge when you only slept three hours the night before. But the greatest challenge was trying to come up with answers for the issues that the campers were bringing to us, which were brutal issues. The beautiful girl who says “I have to drink alcohol it order to survive high school.” That is pathetic. We need to eat, to sleep and to stimulate our minds in order to survive. When one ascribes drinking alcohol to survival, what kind of comment is that on high school culture? What about the 8^th grader who has discovered pornography and has made it a daily habit? How will this affect his view of women in the future? What about the 9^th grader who is wondering if he is a boy or a girl? Or the one who has contemplated suicide as recently as that morning? Or the one who has had sex with 8 different people this year and doesn’t know the last names of four of them? Or the one who doubts the existence of God? Or the one who has an abusive home life? These are not problem teens—these are regular teenagers and this is how life goes for them. These teenagers represent a cross-section of America, actually, they are probably better than the average teenager because they go to church and for a week each summer they go to church camp. One can only wonder about the lives of those who don’t go to church. Ever since my son was born, I look at the campers differently. I try to envision which one I would want my son to grow up to be. I try to envision which is the girl that I would want him to date. I try to imagine what he will struggle with when he gets older. And I shudder to think what kinds of things he will bring to confession when he sits down with a priest as a teenager. Yes, I was more than a little upset and a little angry each Thursday. I wasn’t mad at the campers or their sins, as much as I am angry at the society we live in that delivered these kids to us in the state in which many of them are in. The mothers and fathers who neglect their children, the ones who buy them whatever they want but don’t teach them values, the spouses who argue constantly while their teenager sits in her room and cries, wishing that they would get along—I pray that I will never be like one of these parents. Divorces, second marriages, blended families, parents cheating on each other—these are real issues that these kids are dealing with—what part are we playing in this vicious cycle? Everywhere they look, they get mixed messages on sex, alcohol, purity, dignity and value.

I give a dating talk to many of them while they are at camp. I posed the question—if a guy takes a girl to prom, spends a lot of money and expects the girls to do something of a sexual nature at the end of the evening and the girl does it, what is the difference between that and prostitution? Of course you can see the mouths fall in the room, and hear comments like “I never thought of it like that.” Or how many people you hook up with will affect your ability to stay faithful in a marriage later on. Or, if you have a good group of friends who know how to laugh together and have a good time, what does it say about your group if you have to have alcohol and drugs to have a good time? It says that you are pretty pathetic, because you need to introduce external substances into your group in order to have a good time. Where do kids learn how to drink? Most often from their parents. So, yes, I’m a little upset this morning at the society that delivers these kids to us in the shape that many of them are in. And as a member of that society, I am more cognizant now of the role that I play in developing teenage culture. Every time I use profanity, or argue with my spouse, I am contributing to the teenage culture. Every time we buy a trashy magazine, or get drunk, or allow immoral thoughts to become immoral actions, we are contributing to their culture. So, I am taking a good look at how I act and how I affect the teenage culture by the way I act. I will try to act better. I will pray that this will inspire them to act better.

In many ways, camp is a safe haven for them and for me as well. There is a camp culture that promotes safety, community building, morality and spirituality. Camp is a place where quiet kids fit in and where the loud kids help them to fit in. Camp is a place where we all sing the liturgy together, where we pray before and after each meal, where in the middle of having more fun than you can imagine, we are also learning about Orthodoxy and living an Orthodox life. Saturday morning at 2:00 a.m., I was looking at Jupiter in a telescope on a quiet evening under a star-studded sky. And by noon, I was sitting in bumper to bumper traffic in Atlanta. It’s hard and a little scary to leave that safe haven. And yet, I know that while the camp provides what I consider ideal conditions in which to live, that it is also not realistic, it is not the world that we live in. I believe camp give teenagers and me as well, a glimpse into what heaven will be like. Just like church gives us that image. And then we go back into the world, and try to bring heaven into our everyday lives—through prayer, through working together, through following God’s commandments, through acts of love and charity. It’s a little scary today to be back in the real world—to be honest, I didn’t miss my computer or my cell phone much at all.

In the early morning hours of Friday morning, I went for the sacrament of confession. It would be hypocritical to encourage campers to go confession and not do so myself. I also didn’t like the thought of leaving camp without my own sense of spiritual renewal. So I went and owned up for my sins of the past year. I asked the priest who heard my confession how I can live better this next year. His answer was very simple, “you know what is right, and you know what is wrong. Stop doing what you know is wrong, stop convincing yourself that what is wrong is right, and start doing the right thing, each day. Focus more, pray more, be more disciplined, and you will live better.” As he read the prayer of absolution over me, tears flowed freely, all the failures of the past year were released, and then there were tears of joy and thanksgiving at being renewed once again. Another priest and I agreed to pray for each other every day, and to connect once a week to check up on each other spiritually. We made a pact to watch over each other’s spiritual lives and created some accountability because now there is someone I will report to each week. This is a good concept for not just priests but people to, to engage each other not only as friends but as Christians—to encourage each other, to support each other, to help each other grow together in the image and likeness of Christ.

I leave you with two thoughts—how fast does your life go from zero to chaos each day? We hear car commercials advertise how fast does a car go from zero to 60, from being at rest to going very fast? Most of our lives go from zero to chaos very quickly each day. Over half of the campers send a text message in the first five minutes they are awake each day. Most listen to TV and music at the same time, most study with music on, most send over 100 text messages a day. They spend hours keeping up on email and facebook. And then struggle to find time to fit studying, sports and family time into the picture. Their lives are chaotic. So are adult lives—work, kids, family time, putting an effort into marriages—this is a delicate balancing act. Starting each day with prayer will help you go from zero to controlled life, instead of zero to chaos each day. An occasional prayer during the day will keep the day controlled rather than chaotic.

My final thought has to do with the word “image”. Thursday evening, after hearing many of their confessions, I asked the cabin I was assigned to for our nightly devotional called hangtime to describe me. One of the 16 junior and senior girls said “cute”, another said loving, another said caring, and so on. Then I asked them how would you describe me if I sat here and made an obscene gesture? The first answer, “Hypocrite.” I told them, “At this moment, I am sitting in a room of 16 beautiful girls. If, however, you were each holding a cigarette or alcohol, I would think that you are 16 ugly girls.” See the image changes with only the slightest of modifications. Then we have the image of Christ—the image of serenity, the image of peace, of patience, of love and forgiveness, of total goodness. I told the campers on Friday at Liturgy: “I want you all to make a mental image of the icon of Christ. And I want you all to make a mental image of how you looked yesterday when you finished confession. I want you to store these images in your minds, just like you save your homework on a computer. And if you remember nothing else of what was said this week, I want you to remember the image of how you looked after confession, how it felt to walk up the hill renewed and revitalized, I want you to remember that when you are confronted with temptations this year. And I hope these images we’ve given you at camp will help make the difference in keeping you pure in mind, in body and in spirit during the next year.”

This lesson works for adults too. Life is all about image. It’s all about growing in the image and likeness of Christ. It takes just the slightest modifications in our images to make them like Christ—pray, say kind words, be a peacemaker instead of a peacetaker. And it takes just the slightest modification to destroy that image. As I return home this year, I do so with a renewed commitment to keeping my image Christ-like and working to encourage and to help you do the same. As always, I’m glad I went, but it’s good to be home. Amen.