you've been having trouble staying asleep, you've been waking up at 4:12

Every year the routine is the same. After floating around in outer space for a week we have to endure rough bumps and jars as we re-enter the earth's atmosphere, remembering how to perform mundane tasks like driving a car or using a computer or cell phone. Nothing could be more frusterating. But then when the transition is made and I find myself, somewhat unwillingly, back in my familiar house once again, I shower, unpack, and share storys from the week with the family. All rather unwillingly. But slowly I begin to warm up to my new-old enviroment and see the rightness of the whole pattern, the place real life has in the fabric of thinking I wove for myself while I was away.

And then, after meticulously cleaning up ever corner of my room, I sit down, check my emails, and pull up a blank draft for a blog post. In spite of hopeless exaustion and the threat of an early morning the next day, I'm never furthur from sleep then after returning from Camp. My mind is alive, my emotions are churning in a cacophany of noise and color and brain-matter stuff. I'm bursting to express myself, desperate to make this moment count for something. And usually after attempting to make that blog post captering the essence of all that I am and all that life is, I give up and go do something to remember, like climb up to the top of the swing set and listen to Angels and Airwaves under the stars. Or write in one of my stories a scene that I'll keep comming back to for forever. What will it be tonight? In the end, nothing ever quite satisfies the intense longing Camp Hope creates in me for something I can't identify and I have to just go to bed. The next day, the process of forgetting begins and somehow it doesn't bother me like it does tonight.

So what is it? What is it about Camp Hope that shakes me to my core every single time, weather it's Junior or Teen camp, weather I'm staff or a camper, and no matter who comes? It's so strange.

I just know that when I first arrived I felt disapointed, because it really wasn't all that great. I saw a bunch of dirty cabins in the woods with a gutterball table in the middle. And then people started showing up and I thought the same thing- these are just regular teens with regular teen problems. Whatever magic Camp Hope used to have for me is over now, that was all a part of hormonal adolesence. I think this just about ever year. But like usual, I warmed up to it and became so emotionally attached to EVERYTHING and everyone. For reasons I just don't understand.

I noticed this year that at the beginning of camp I was judging people right and left- this person was better looking than that person, that person just plain bothered me, this group of people could hardly compare to my elect chosen few I wanted to be friends with exclusively. I didn't realize I was judging them, I guess I just always judge people and choose favorites and think mean thoughts. But as the week progressed these barriers began to fall down, and I started noticing things about people that endeared them to me, things that went so much deeper than their ability to measure up to my personal standard. The ability to love, just naturally, compulsively, uninhibitedly, is born in me during camp and it spills over to include just about everyone. I've heard that to trully love someone you have to see them how God sees them, and I think I began to see people that way to an extent this week. I forgot all about my original steriotypes.

And then there's the Anual Disapearence of Inhabitions. Everyone always points it out: at Camp Hope nobody tries to be cool or impress anyone. That atmosphere is simply not tollerated. You can just be who you are and do what you want to do and people will laugh and yes, join in. I have become such a snob over the year, thinking that I was finally beyond being reckless and even a little stupid. It's so amazing to be in an atmosphere where you feel people will love you no matter what, where you can "open up and come alive." How long have I been caging myself in the same closed-minded expectations I place on other people, as though there's only one right way to be and I have to find it?

Most importantly of all, I never feel closer to God than when I'm at camp. Suddenly everything in me is involved when we're singing a worship song, my emotions and my desires as well as my mind. My prayers become so real and more constant, the truths in the chapel messages often sink furthur in than they would have at home. It's never perfect, of course, but He just seems closer when I'm at Camp, away from everything that makes me stumble. It's all so beleivable. Faith is so strong, conviction so real. What I wouldn't give to live like this all the time!

My priorities change so much when I'm at camp. It's hard to beleive that a week ago I was stressing over doctrinal technicalities or work or school or relationships when there are such things as worship and fellowship and unspeakable friendship. Ahh, I just want everything about my life to change so much. I want to be more, do more, see more, live more. And I don't ever want to forget the memories from this week, even though many of them were hard and painful and stressful and not fun for me at the moment. I want to hold on to every tiny thing I learned. Like I said, it's just so strange.

My only theory is that Camp Hope is a little bit like what heaven will be. Lots of hard work, a LOT of honest and real worship, indescribable, intimate communion with God 24-7, and unending fellowship with true beleivers. Suddenly I understand why we won't miss things like sleeping or food or marriage. If that's what heaven is going to be like, I can hardly wait another day.