Behind It All.

A Little Facelift.

Ever had one of those nights where you're really tired but you just need to wind down? An evening when you're getting to bed at 10pm only to find yourself still playing solitaire at 3am?

I had one of those tonight. I decided to make some new backgrounds of some of the counselors ... Amber with the parachute, Asenath in a paintball mask, Becky swimming, Lisa with two of my favorite day campers, myself doing the limbo, Luke at the zipline, and Spiderman with a camper. Fun stuff.

p.s. - I cannot figure out why blogger is only posting the latest blog entry. I don't think it's my fault ... I may have changed the template when I changed my backgrounds ... but I also know that they're doing an overhaul on the Blogger website. Sorry for the inconvenience, y'all.

Hello, Strangerthanfiction.

Posting every day ... that was a good one, right? I don't know how that crazy idea perched itself in the rafters of my mind, but I was obviously a little off-base. If you haven't noticed, this is my first post in about two weeks ... an eternity in the blogging world. I'm tempted to say that it's because I'm busy ... but that's not quite true. Don't be offended (especially those of you who are regulars here) ... but I simply have had better things to do.

I'll take this chance, however, to update y'all on how my life is going. I'm living out at camp right now. We just finished up our first week of overnight camp ... it's been an awesome experience. Bewildering at times, belittling at others, befitting always. I've been humbled, encouraged, and amazed by the way that God is methodically working in our midst, preparing the staff to minister to the children and infecting us all with their childlike joy and wonder. It's a wonderful process ... one I don't completely understand ... but I know that I must do whatever I can to be a part of it.

Some of my favorite moments from the week include; Sunday's flash floods that closed most of the roads around the camp and shut down our electricity (while 80ish families tried to find the camp grounds); seeing Amber's joy over her Explorer's Nature Camp kids; being confused and bewildered (and thus humbled) by strange feelings of jealousy; scaring the tar out of the Cabin 4 girls; hearing one girl tell me how "God's hand touched me in a way I can't explain"; pushing the golf cart out of the mud 3 different times; Kaiser-roll sandwiches; being crazy with Adam at the zipline; making Tiffany smile when she didn't want to; one cute little boy seeing my inept guitar playing and seeking me out to encourage me by saying, "I think you're a good guitar player"; learning from Sarah how to be an invisible servant; Becky's poeima; talking to the campers about "secret identities"; not losing any campers (that's a joke, parents); watching the amazing Mike Westwood become a superhero (with his kids) before my very eyes; seeing Esther bloom; annihilating the kids in a game of paintball; Matt Wicker; feeling God's hand on my shoulder.

This morning I worked my "token shift" at Apple for this month. It was a little surreal going to a clean suburban environment for a day and selling something ... completely opposite from what I've been used to the past couple of weeks. But it was cool ... and my numbers for the month are going to be pretty high because I did well today (and it's the only day I'll work in June). Needless to say, I'll be very glad to go back to Camden and get a little dirty tonight. :)

Ok, it's time to go. Now that I'm moved back into my own cabin I might actually take a couple of nights to post some stories and reactions. If not, that just means that life is too good to stop and type. That's a good thing, my friend. A real good thing.

Exactitudes

This website is fascinating. It explores the idea of individuality becoming uniformity ... as people try to distinguish and express themselves, they begin to conform to a group identity and blend into the crowd.

That makes sense. When someone tries to be "different," rarely does that person actually become an individual. She usually just joins another subculture with a different set of rules. What does that say about us?

Arachnaphobia

Sounds like the rubber species are on the move again.

Guilty As Charged.

I often have a hard time seeing how other people perceive me. For a long time that really hasn't mattered ... I'm not exactly a person who lives for the approval of others. But in the past few years I've also learned that it's difficult to evaluate myself (at least for me). One of the easiest ways to see where I need to grow, then, is to listen to the input and perspectives of those that I know well and trust. And because my life intersects with these very same people, their perspectives of me somewhat shape our relatonships as well. And because I care about these people, I should care about how they perceive me.

Which brings me to my point. As I was perusing my friend Annie's blog today when I came across something that made me really sad:

"I don't really know anyone there except Lance, who is a great friend but who's also the most busy person I know."

Wow. I love that girl ... she's just a gem that God's been polishing since the first day I met her. But to hear her say that was pretty crushing ... not because I was insulted or offended, but because it's true. I am an incredibly busy person at this time of my life. But could it really be that busy-ness is defining me? I know that I do a lot of things, but am I really abandoning my friends as a result?

Truth is, I don't have a lot of friends down here in Cincinnati. One or two, but they're not even the type of friendships where we hang out regularly. My closest friends live a distance away, and we tend to see each other at events or weekends or things like that. So during my everyday life down here, I dig in my heels and work my butt off. Ecclesiastes 9:10 gives a little insight into why:

"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom."

I'm serving the Lord here. He's the most important thing in my life and my purpose is to worship Him. To be quite honest, I could lose all of my friends today and still be able to worship the Lord. With everything. I will continue to do this, to serve my Beloved with everything I am.

But am I overdoing it? Am I being inconsiderate? Am I missing out and messing up friendships? Perhaps I need to step back and reconsider my committments. I enjoy serving wholeheartedly, but maybe I should conserve some of that heart (some margin, if you will). Hmm.

The Dilly, Yo.

I'm sitting here in the Mazda dealership waiting for Louie to get his oil changed. The television is showing the Maury Povich show ... something about a husband taking DNA tests to prove that none of his 5 children were fathered by him. He called his wife a slut, the wife is livid, they're fighting like crazy, the audience is spurring them all on. I just don't understand. It's so surreal that they must be faking. Do people really live like this? Do people really watch this stuff on television?

Anyways, now's a great time to give y'all a little update. As you could probably imagine, the last week has been completely insane. I finished that crazy video project and had it sent to Dayton for duplication (bonus: the video is done and they're actually delivering it to me tomorrow! sweet!). I had to completely move out of my apartment because my landlords moved to Utah. A fellow teacher was gracious enough to let me store my stuff at her apartment, and I made the transition up to camp for staff training (which started last Wednesday).

So now I'm living up at camp, spending every available moment with the counselors. We truly do have a wonderful group of people ... beautiful in so many surprising ways and so willing to serve with their entire selves. We're all learning the intricacies of camp life and getting to know each other better right now. I can't wait to be able to devote everything I have to these young men and women. The Lord is moving in our midst ...

But school's still in session, so I get up around 6am every morning (after wrapping up miscellaneous camp tasks at 2 or 2:30ish) to drive an hour out to CHCA. I'm actually pretty used to that schedule, even though it's starting to take a toll on my body. Two more days, though ... tomorrow is field day and Friday is only a half day (with graduation that evening). Oh, and there are meetings on Monday, but they don't count. This is just a fun week overall ... my grades are done and turned in, most of my administrative work is over (well, maybe not, but I'm doing a good job of not making more administrative work for myself), and my classes are simply filled with games for the kids. That's one nice thing about having a camp life ... I have no shortage of classroom games to play. Oh, and today I had the pleasure of playing dodgeball against some of the 7th graders ... there are few things as therapeutic as repeatedly pelting your students as hard as you can with colorful projectiles.

I decided to get ahead of the game with cross country as well (I'll be the coach in the fall) and recruit some fast and fun kids. It looks like we might have 20-25 runners on the team ... quite an increase from the 12 of last year (especially because we're losing 10 of those 12 to graduation). It's gonna be a blast ... and if things work out we're totally going to dominate. These kids are fast.

Hmm ... what else ... we had a family reunion last weekend to celebrate my father's retirement. He worked for ... well, I'm not sure, about 35 or 40 years ... as a blue-collar plaster model maker for Goodyear. What an incredible man, a model of faithfulness and fortitude. It was fitting to come together as a family and appreciate him together, all 4 of us children and 10 of his grandchildren. We had pictures taken (and I took my first two rolls of "analog" film), went out to dinner, and played with the kids a whole lot. It was wonderful.

Update on the television thing ... turns out that he was the father of all the kids (I don't know that I've ever heard a woman scream like that), they weren't married at all these past 15 years, and they returned to the show a couple of months later, where the dude actually proposed to the woman. Once again she went crazy ... I think I pinched a nerve in my back just watching. The drama is stifling.

Well, I think that's about it for today. I'm interested to see how posting this summer goes ... even though it'd be extremely easy to simply stop getting online all summer (I am living at an outdoor camp, after all), I think I'd like to make a conscious effort to at least make one post per day (give or take a few). Contact with the outside world, even in such a limited and unidirectional manner, is probably a good thing. Plus, it would help me process what's happening in front of people who aren't here. But maybe I'm wrong. We'll just have to wait and see, I guess.

Over and out, yo.

E.A.T. M.E.A.T. (YES!)

I suppose some of you are probably wondering what's up with me. I'm in the midst of a wonderfully saturated week, juggling staff training at camp and the last week of school ... uh, at school. If I can get my grades done today I'm planning to put a post up with some thick details about wuzzupime. Or, as GRITS (and occasionally GhettoSteph) would say, they'll be "rhymes so meaty like jumbalaya" (translation here).

Sorry about that title. It's a tribute to Mike Westwood (YES!).

Chin 2

Want a good laugh? Check out this link from Kyle Neyer.

Personally, I think Kyle needs to make a Chin 3 video. Choreography and all.