Ch 17: A Rocky Detour

For writers, one week's distraction is another week's source material.

Although I really, really wanted to finish Heavenly Father's Day by the end of July (2009), I knew in my heart of hearts that deadline was probably unrealistic. For one thing, there were still large sections of the book for which I had no pre-existing material to draw upon.

For another, several months earlier, back when I was gullible enough to believe writing a book would take me a month, tops, I had committed to being a counselor for our church’s Senior High Camp. So 25% of my potential writing time in July was already spoken for, and off the proverbial churning-out-a-book schedule.

[Editor's Note: This article is Chapter 17 in my serialized spiritual memoir Well Guided: My Life as a Student at the International Academy of God, in which I share some of the many ways God has had a hand in my life. Access previous chapters via the Table of Contents.]

And yet, once again, this act of service was not an interruption of the writing process, but a confirmation of it. Actually, service was a contribution to the process, as the spiritual development that enabled me to write this book in the first place continued at camp.

Only I didn’t know that up front. In fact, I agonized for weeks over whether or not I should back out of my camp commitment. Should I follow through on my response to God's request to write a book, or on my commitment to my church family?

Of course, that was scarcity mentality. I was caught in a trap of my own making. In the end, I realized it wasn't fair to the other camp staff to back out on them. It wasn't their fault I hadn't finished the book. So off to camp I went.

What’s the Big Deal About Camp?

Camp, in my faith tradition, is a big deal.

Historically, geographically separated congregations have gathered together once a year in a family camp called Reunion. Really, that name recognizes that we all belong to one church family, so we enjoy gathering in the same way a large group of related families would gather.

In addition to Reunion, we offer many other camps, usually targeting specific demographic groups. Some last for a week. Others, usually called retreats, last only a weekend. These are community-building times that have become deeply ingrained in our culture. Children are raised on them. 

Something magical happens when we gather together to sing, play sports, get crafty, laugh at silly campfire skits, worship, and generally find ourselves surrounded by an enveloping sense of God among us. We place special emphasis on accepting one another’s whole selves, on self discovery, on leadership development, and on creating a safe space where we can be vulnerable to one another and to the Spirit.

One of my dearest possessions is a picture taken at a Reunion in Kirtland, Ohio, in 1911. Great-grandfather Frank (a minister), great-grandmother Mossie, and four of their eventual five children are standing in front of a canvas tent. My grandmother, Frances, is the preschooler in the glasses. (The young woman on the right, Eva, was a cousin.)

The Shinn family at Reunion family camp, Kirtland, Ohio, 1911.

Yes, you could say church camp is in my blood. I’ve been attending camps and retreats pretty much my whole life, either with my family, or with my age cohort (growing up), or with a special-interest group (like that 1990 Women’s Retreat where I learned the form of spiritual journaling I call Listening for Guidance). 

Camp has been an important source of my spiritual growth, as well as an opportunity to recharge my spiritual batteries. Camp never fails to supply a much-needed opportunity to get away from my everyday concerns to focus on my faith and evaluate where my life is headed.

Getting a Giant Case of Culture Shock

When I was growing up, camp meant Temple Grove, a lovely 150-acre campground about an hour-and-a-half’s drive from my Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania neighborhood. But in 2009, as I was writing Heavenly Father’s Day, I was living in South Carolina.

Unfortunately, a series of events, including a fire in the dining hall, had rendered the original South Carolina campgrounds unusable. And the fire had been followed by a land dispute with the heirs of the grounds’ donor. Point being: it all ended badly for the church. By the time I arrived in the South, those campgrounds were not only gone, they were a distant memory. 

For someone like me, who had grown up enjoying a campground as practically a second home, the lack of one was painful. Major culture shock.

Even worse, the Southeast (U.S.) Mission Center our congregation was a part of couldn’t find a permanent home for our youth camps. Reunion, which met Labor Day weekend, was comfortably settled at Lutheridge, near Asheville, North Carolina. But the youth (including my two sons) were like vagabonds, with their camping location switching year after year. 

Then, three or four years in a row, the Mission Center rented a campground in the middle of South Carolina, which was a good location in terms of driving youth in from our member congregations (in North Carolina, South Carolina, and northern Georgia). And yet, that site was not ideal. 

Wait, we had a regular place to hold camp for several years running, and still I am complaining? 

Let me explain.

The Stinky, the Sassy, and the Silver Lining

To the locals, the middle of South Carolina is known as the armpit of the state. The low country, near the Atlantic Ocean, gets sea breezes. The upstate in the west (where my family lives) gets mountain breezes. But the middle just gets hot and muggy, and the air stagnates.

Sure, there would sometimes be a breeze in this mid-state campground, nestled in a shallow valley—except the breeze would often be wafting in from the direction of the chicken farm, up the hill. The stench was, well, you can imagine.

This was the place, in the summer of 2009, I had knowingly volunteered to go. I gritted my teeth and made my peace with a week living downwind from a poultry farm. With our store sold, and my time now pretty much my own, it was time I stepped up and did my part for the youth.

Suffice it to say that, apart from the putrid air, dealing with the dozen teenage girls in my assigned cabin was not the uplifting experience I had hoped for. There were challengers who pretty much ignored every rule and curfew, and sassed (or at least rolled their eyes) in response to my every word.

Fortunately, there was a silver lining in this otherwise stressful experience. Actually, several silver linings.

First, as I listened to the camp chaplain, Dean, on a daily basis, I realized he was presenting messages similar to those I had been writing about. It was reassuring to discover my theological ideas fit with his. 

Second, I found myself with ready answers to questions that arose in the discussion group I was asked to lead. I’m the kind of person who likes to think about tough questions before responding, and as it turns out, the writing had afforded me the chance to do just that. Both of these experiences upped my confidence. As someone who was ordained but not a seminary graduate (the norm in my faith tradition), that confidence was important. 

Third, that week gave me a lot of practice telling people about my book. And the campers were excited to hear my story. Some even expressed an interest in reading it when I managed to get it published. Another welcome confidence booster. 

Fourth, and most importantly, camp closed with a powerful shared experience that provided me with much to reflect on.

The Heavy Lesson

The neat thing about youth camps is, you can be inventive. You can try things out on young people that might seem silly with a group of adults. It’s a summer camp, after all. There’s a lot of laughter, tears, and silliness right alongside profound experiences and powerful, unexpected teachings.

That week was no exception. 

On Day One, Dean handed each of us, campers and staff alike, a small tote bag made of linen-colored, lightweight canvas. Sturdy, but visually unexciting. Our instructions were to carry the bag with us everywhere. Any time we failed to observe one of the rules set down by Candy, the camp director, we were given a rock to put in our bag. I was awarded my first rock when I was a couple minutes late for a meeting.

For the next six days, Candy and Dean continued to drop rocks into our bags for even the slightest infraction. With the rocks averaging about a pound each, by the end of the week, many of us were lugging around quite a load. Some campers had 15 or 20 rocks. That’s a lot of baggage to haul from dorm to mess hall to classroom to campfire. And even to the bathroom. 

Happily, the experiment drew to a close at the special farewell campfire on the last evening. Campfire at youth camp is a big deal, and the final one is a highlight of the week. In anticipation of saying our goodbyes the next morning, the closing campfire is a time for sharing in song, both silly and serious. A time for sharing what we had learned and what the week’s experiences had meant to us. 

And, for all us grumpy rock collectors, we learned what those rocks were all about.

The rocks, Dean explained, represented our sins. The chore of carrying them around all week showed how our sins drag us down spiritually and emotionally. And now, we were going to experience how it feels to have our sins forgiven. One by one, we came forward and dumped our rocks onto a growing pile. We then threw the tote bags into the campfire and watched the flames flare up and incinerate the fabric.

It was a dramatic and meaningful lesson that would work its way into another couple pages of my book.

Insights Come as We Respond

I recently heard a sermon that speaks to that whole summer’s experience, trying to parse which form of ministry I should focus on: hole up and write, or serve at church camp? At the time, I was short-sighted. I couldn’t even imagine that being of service would bring me closer to my goal of finishing the book. Steve Veazey, Community of Christ’s president, summed it up this way:

Asking questions is faithfulness because we are genuinely seeking God's guidance all the time. However, discernment of any type is not a time to pause or take a "wait and see" attitude before engaging in ministry. Often, insights come as we respond and reflect on our ministry experiences.

Looking back now, I’d say that bag of rocks object lesson begs the question: What sins had I been carrying around unnecessarily? At that moment, the burden I was carrying was the guilt of not having finished the book. That day in early July when I left for camp, I hadn’t yet learned the lesson God was trying to teach me. So the Great Teacher showed me that lesson another way. As I had transcribed in my journal, Indeed, even when you are not working [i.e., when you think you aren’t working on the book], you really are.

This is actually a lesson from creative writing (thanks Creator!), that your subconscious is always working on your book.

The whole time I was at camp, feeling guilty for not having finished writing, I was gathering material that would help. And, I had received confirmation that what I had already written was sound theologically. And, a bunch of young people—spirited (to say the least) high-schoolers—had encouraged my efforts.

Actually, once I was back at home, I realized the campers were pretty close to my ideal reader. So their encouragement meant even more to me.

Keeping the Faith, Still

The evening after I got home from camp, I grabbed my journal and made a list of things I’d want to remember. Then it was the Spirit’s turn to summarize. 

Do not think to get a job just yet. Someday that may again be something you want to do, but, I say again, not yet. Make all haste now to finish your book. I'm pretty much done with showing you things. Just tiny stuff remains. So go ahead now and just do it.

The Amazon POD idea is good, but may not be the only way. You will be marketing socially, so take the cost into consideration. Or maybe have multiple publishers, if possible. Do your website while the reviewers are working. Don't wait to hear from everyone. Just give them a drop-dead launch date and then stick to that.

[Reviewer S] may never respond. If so, just go ahead with your plans assuming he would write if something was of concern to him. Amen.

… And now rest and proceed tomorrow with finishing your book. Trust in my words and in my message through you—not your message, but mine—not your will, but mine—not your job to touch the reader, but mine. You are just the messenger, so take comfort in that. Keep up the good work. I love you. Amen.

The part about just being the messenger really helped take the pressure off, as far as my on-going worries about getting nasty feedback. I felt better. And ready to get back to work. Over the next week, I reviewed all the chapters and sections. There were still big gaps I had no idea how to fill. God had said Just tiny stuff remains, but it sure wasn’t feeling that way. Once again, I returned to writing in my spiritual journal. 

[K]eep working on your book. Fear not for those places where you seem not to have enough. I will provide. So go forward in faith and complete what has already been given.

How could I not believe that promise, especially after the experiences of June and July? So, I pressed on, little knowing what new challenge lay just ahead.

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