I got back to Las Cruces yesterday, from a long week at Camp Stoney. As I have observed before, I am not a natural summer camper. If you have ever seen the film "Adams Family Values" the camp sequence summarizes my own basic feelings about camp very well.
However, for this week, I tried to put my own grumpy, introverted prejudice against all things Summer camp aside, and judge the camp on its own merits.
Overall, I think the camp is doing a good ministry.
There were certainly things I would do differently if I were setting up the structure of the camp, but I want to share one deeply moving thing that happened at the end of camp.
We were not expecting to be able to have a final Eucharist, but a priest was able to come at the last minute. Before the Eucharist there was an Agape meal. The agape meal was simple, with the kids sitting around tables arranged in the shape of a cross, and a lot of candles scattered about.
The kids were asked to read a lot of verses about love, and one of the counselors explained the meaning of agape love.
We sang some worship songs (I am not a big fan of worship music, but these were all reverent and well known songs) and as the evening went on, it got darker, and finally the only light in the room was the candles.
It was already pretty dark when the kids were asked if they would give any testimonies they might have. It was at this point, that things became heart breaking. One of the first kids to speak up was a little boy, maybe twelve years old who talked about how he had heard God's voice holding him back during a suicide attempt. And many of the kids had similar stories. These were young kids, from difficult backgrounds, and almost all of them had gone through far more suffering in their lives than I have ever had to face. I confess, I was crying by the end of the night.
I was grieved and outraged by the pain these children were going through. I don't want to sound pretentious, but I thought of the Brother's Karamazov and Ivan's anguished discussion with Alyosha, about suffering, and with Ivan I wondered how anything could ever possibly justify or rectify the suffering that these children have in their lives.
And the only response I have is to cling to the cross and to the Eucharist, where the Lord's death is proclaimed until he comes again, where God is with us in the most small and hidden of forms.
And when it came time for the Eucharist, which was very simple, just following the so called "Rite III" in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, the priest celebrating for us paused to explain that as Episcopalians we believe that Christ is really present in the Eucharist, feeding us. At the fraction, he pauses again to explain that the fraction signifies Christ's broken body, but also our brokenness which is made whole by Christ's. It was the best thing I think he could have said to those kids.
I had the honor of helping distribute communion, and I am deeply grateful for it.
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