During the summer before my senior year of high school, I attended Character Camp—a Christian "leadership camp"—with about eight other kids. We spent our days on a ropes course, white-water rafting, performing physical team-building exercises. In the evenings we gathered for Bible-based leadership instruction. (On one memorable occasion, we watched Watership Down and discussed in what ways the various rabbits displayed leadership qualities.)
This camp was important to me; I was wholly invested in it. I was intent on every word that was spoken, searched deep for every possible meaning that could be derived from our experience. At this time in my life, I was completely devoted to God and my religion, and more than anything I wanted to serve Him.
We spent several days in the river community of Dant, south of Maupin along the Deschutes River. One evening our leader, Byron Kehler, had us gather our sleeping bags and a small dinner, and he led us to a dry creek bed. He instructed us that we were to spend the night alone in this creek bed, spacing ourselves several hundred yards apart. We were to embrace the solitude, to discover in which ways it led us closer to God. In the morning, we would discuss what we had learned from our fleeting hermitage.
I was the first to be left at a campsite, so I was closest to the house. The group left me at my site and walked to the next campsite, a few hundred yards away.
I spent the last few hours of daylight writing in my journal. I wrote a letter to Kristin Kauffman. I read a book. When the darkness fell, I crawled into my sleeping bag and turned my thoughts inward.
I reflected.
I searched for God.
I fell asleep.
I awoke with the first light of dawn, refreshed, excited to face the day. Had I come closer to God? I believed I had!
I was in great spirits as I packed my things and made my way back to the house. Nobody else had returned yet, so was able to have the first shower. What a glorious day!
I was sitting at the table eating breakfast when the rest of the group came back, together. Byron was upset.
"Where were you, J.D.?" he asked.
I was confused. "What do you mean?" I said.
"You weren't at your camp site. You were supposed to wait at your camp site until the group came to get you, and then we were to walk back to the house together," he explained, his jaw tight, neck muscles tensed.
"Oh," I said, my spirits sinking. The rest of the campers stood behind him, sleeping bags and books and journals in hand, staring at me with disapproval. I felt lost. I had let the group down. "I didn't know," I said meekly, bowing my head, staring at my food.
"How could you not know?" Byron asked, his temper rising. "This is what we had planned. We each spent the night alone, and then came back together as a group. That was the Whole Point."
The Whole Point? I believed that I had followed the instructions to the letter. How did I miss that we were supposed to walk back to the house together? The more I thought about it, the more certain I was that I had never heard this instruction.
Still, I spent the last few days of camp humbled, wondering how I had missed the Whole Point.
To this day, I'm not sure how I missed the Whole Point. It was not due to inattention; my entire being was focused on this Character Camp; I hung on Byron's every word. I felt as if my entire future were somehow tied up in what occurred during this week. In many ways, it was.
In retrospect, I suspect that one of two things occurred: I missed the Whole Point either because:
- I was in not in the room when it was explained (perhaps I was in the bathroom), or
- It was explained after the group left me at my camp site -- maybe Tim Hershberger asked for clarification and it was given at that time.
And maybe, in some small way, this helped start me down the road to atheism.
To the south of Dant, the land rises sharply. One afternoon, in the blazing sun, we hiked to the top of a bluff. We crawled to the cliff edge and we looked down several hundred feet into the Deschutes River. A few days before, we had paddled that stretch of water in our rafts.
The altitude was intoxicating. Lying flat on my stomach, peering over the edge, I could believe that I was flying, soaring above the rocks and the river.
For a moment, the urge to leap out into the abyss was almost unbearable.
On this day at foldedspace.org
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I really enjoyed this entry. As to whether you missed the Whole Point (I actually found the capitalization of these two words quite amusing) or not, I can only say this. Sometimes adults fail to realize the complexity of the child or adolescent mind. They don't believe children are capable of profound thought or have the ability to become closer to God on their own. Some also think self discovery is bad. I think if the exercise was that of isolation and you managed to become closer to God (or closer to yourself) then you didn't miss the point. It's unfortunate that you were shot down in what might have been a life altering experience for you. Most unfortunate.
P.S You write beautifully.