thanks shannon

Next week, I will make my annual pilgrimage out to Camp Allen, near Navasota, TX for the 28th year. My first visit was in 1985, and my parents tell me the story that when they first took me to camp, after they got me registered, they tried to find me to say goodbye, but I was busy helping other campers unload  their cars and get moved into their cabins. I was hooked from the start.

I learned about God at Camp Allen. I learned that God was bigger than I had ever imagined. Each year, it seems, I return and in some way, my understanding of God grows. Being in nature, being in community, playing, sharing, walking from place to place; it all teaches me again and again. It has shaped who I am as a Christian, and Episcopalian, and a priest. I go there to serve the church, to be there for a new generation of campers, but I get so much out of my time there. The staff in the above picture and the one below is exactly the same. Different people, but the same spirit. The campers are the same, too. There's that camper who will start the week homesick, but fall in love with camp, and cry when it's time to leave. There's that camper who won't stop talking, ever; always another story to tell. There's the arts and crafts wizard. It just happens that way. There will also be campers who's lives are tragic, and Camp Allen is an amazing respite, a safe place to experience love and to heal a little.

We'll all show up strangers and leave friends. At that first session in '85 I met Kevin. We fought over a girl early in the week, and we became friends by the end of the week (Shannon, the girl, moved on from both of us, and went to the dance with Blake.) Now 28 years later Kevin and I are going back as priests to be directors at the same camp. There will be some campers fighting over a girl at the beginning of the week, and we'll have to wait 28 years to see how their stories unfold.