I’ve been visiting Camp Cross for over 10 years. We attended a Labor Day Family Camp with our St. James’ (Pullman, WA) parishioners and I enjoyed the glorious natural beauty, but also the fellowship among the participants. Christian community in a non-parish setting is one feature of Camp Cross that has me reminding others to “keep comin’ back! “

While wading at Crescent Beach, my wife Alison relayed her metaphor for her relationship to God.  In the cool water, she floats effortlessly.  As she returns to the rocky shore, her body becomes heavy as she leaves the (holy) water and works to carry herself. It’s harder and harder to gain ones footing.  Yet, a loving arm reaches out to help her gain stability. This arm is God’s love in the form of your loving friend. Together, you can walk the journey on hot, dry land, until you once again return to refreshing water for relief.

Additionally, Camp Cross is a holy place where I have seen miracles happen.  Of course, miracles are in the eyes of the beholder and subject to perspective. This week I have seen the miracle of change. Mid-high campers arrived on Sunday, with anxiety, fears and few friends. In just a few days, I have seen them transformed. They’ve bonded with each other, shared intense experiences, been challenged in their views of faith and even improved their table manners (yes, a great miracle indeed!).  In all seriousness, the joy shared in a small group or gathered around a summer campfire is a holy miracle repeated again and again here.  I’ve noticed another transforming miracle recently.  As I look at this year’s staff members, several have spent many years coming to Camp Cross. They’ve loved being a camper with all the newness that experience brings. Camp Cross can be an intense emotional experience of faith on a young person’s own terms, far from their parish home.  It’s their mountaintop where they gain spiritual insight. Some grow into being a counselor, learning leadership skills shepherding a small group.  This is a critical stage in the faith formation of young people. Of that group, some continue serving as permanent staff members, gaining more leadership skills at the next level, long after coming to Camp Cross for the first time.  This chain of transformative experiences shapes the lifelong faith of many.

Wednesday night, we used a meditation from Taize to focus in the darkness of the cool evening, sitting on a floating dock.  Many relaxed on their backs, pondering the universe, gazing up into the vast expanse of stars. Some reported seeing up to five shooting stars and several orbiting satellites were visible.  Amid the cool breeze, surrounded by both intimate friends and endless cosmos, God is good; Very good; Always.

TECers, team members, and adults pose for a photo on Sunday morning.

From Friday January 16 to Sunday January 28, the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist hosted its third Teens Encounter Christ (TEC), which is a retreat lead by youth for youth.  There were about 40 youth in attendance, approximately equally divided between TECers (youth who had not attended a TEC before) and team members (youth who had attended a previous TEC and were now helping lead this TEC).

The youth sit to listen to a talk.

The program for TEC involved ten talks, most given by the youth leaders, whose topics spanned from “Who am I?” to turning from sin to “Being an Apostle.”  The youth discussed the talks afterward, in five small groups, each lead by some of the team members.  The youth also ate together in these groups for most of the meals.

The program also involved several worship experiences, which brought the youth from the Ash Wednesday and Good Friday experience, through the Easter mystery, and into Pentecost.  Friday night ended with an Ash Wednesday/Good Friday service, which involved a writing and burning of sins, an imposition of ashes, and a form of the stations of the cross.  Saturday morning began with an Easter Vigil, and Sunday celebrated Pentecost.

The youth gather around, listening to the singer Marshall play before one of the talks.

On Saturday afternoon the Rev. Bert Marshall, a pastor in the United Church of Christ, recited the entire Gospel of Mark, which he had memorized.  He did not follow a particular translation, but rather recited it in his own words.  He recited with a certain amount of drama, in the form of oral story, which kept it interesting.  It was pretty cool, although some of the kids got bored and we were all really tired.  We had been up past one in the morning the night before, in order to get through all the talks and everything.  One of the funniest parts of the presentation of the gospel was how it ended.  The end of the Gospel of Mark is so abrupt, the women see Jesus is risen and they don’t tell anyone, and that’s it.  So he recited up through that, and then he left, and we all just sat there.  Well, then he came back and he told us, you know, that really is the end.  He then took questions.  The event was open to the public, and the questions mostly ended up being for their benefit, because those of us doing TEC had to go do other things.  The TECers had to go shower and have some free time, and we adults and team members had to get the Agape Dinner set up.

At the Agape Dinner.

The Agape Dinner was the dinner on Saturday night.  It was a formal sit-down dinner that was a surprise for the TECers.  All the youth, both team members and TECers got served by us adults.  After the dinner, the TECers were led on a trust walk which led them to the crypt.  While they were on the walk, we set up the big community room in the crypt for a dance, with music, cool lights, and a fog machine.  We also set up the smaller youth room as a quiet room with board games, for people who didn’t want to dance.

Decorating bags for wheat.

After the dance, we all went back upstairs to the cathedral and the TECers were given their wheat.  In TEC, wheat is a term that means a sign of God’s love.  All the team members made wheat for all the TECers.  For instance, one made cookies for everyone, and another made little bags with Hershey’s kisses and a poem.  The most important wheat is a letter each TECer receives from his parents, about how much they love him. Our youth director, Michelle, tells the parents to write the letter.  Since I knew my parents did not know about this, I was not expecting to get any wheat letters.  I was, therefore, quite surprised to get letters from the people I work with, like my priest and the people at the diocesan office.  It was quite unexpected. I suppose that’s the point.

TEC was pretty different from anything I’d ever seen.  In the church I grew up in, we did not do much in the way of youth retreats.  I think the closest I had ever experienced was a lock-in at my church in sixth grade, but the only part I really remember about that was playing hide-and-go-seek in the sanctuary.  TEC was a lot more religious.  It was a good experience, but also really intense.  It was difficult because Michelle was trying to give me some of the TEC experience while I was simultaneously doing the adult helper thing.  That combination meant seeing most of the talks and getting the wheat letters, but also having to do adult things, which generally meant getting things ready for the next event.  It was alright having to do that except that it ended up meaning that, unlike the TECers, I didn’t really have any time to process anything that happened.  On the whole, though, TEC was a very good experience and one I was glad to have helped with.

Crosswalk asked us to bake pie for about 80 people, so we baked six pumpkin pies and six apple pies.  Because it had snowed the night before and the roads continued to be rather treacherous, we had not been sure that any of the youth would be able to come.  As it turned out, we had about six kids when we started baking the pies, around one in the afternoon, and another six or so trickled in over the course of the afternoon.

It took us about three hours to make the pies and clean up.  Michelle and Pia showed a couple of the kids how to make pie dough and I helped some others prepare the apples for the apple pies.  By about four in the afternoon, we had finished cleaning up and all the pies were either baking in the oven or were done.  We then had our present exchange.  Everybody brought a present and everyone had a turn to either open a present or steal a present someone else had opened.  I brought a card game and ended up with a set of really cool magnetic rocks.

After the present exchange, we had an early dinner, so the kids could leave before the roads all froze, and the kids trickled back home.  After we finished cleaning up, we went to the wholesale grocery store to buy eggnog and whipped cream, which we took to Crosswalk along with the pies.