So as I was saying in my previous post, I learned a fair amount about myself and others, through the works of Kurt Vonnegut, but for the purposes of this tale, the story begins much earlier.
It was the summer before I went to middle school, and my elementary school sent a letter to my parents which said something along the lines of “Your son is socially retarded, and should go to summer camp.” Which, at the time, seemed a good idea to all involved.
They paid the registration fee, and the excitement of wacky adventures with bikini-clad girls was difficult to resist. That is… until the “checklist” came, detailing things I needed to bring, and things I could not bring…
The list was fairly normal. No spandex (which may sound odd now, but spandex shorts were pretty stylish at the time), no video games (okay, they want us to play outside), no radios. Rather Footloose if you ask me, but okay.
But then… “Bible” showed up. And that’s when I examined the logo. Camp Michawana: Where Christ Is First.
I was going to Bible camp.
With this in mind, it is probably worthwhile to point out that I had been raised Episcopalian, and let’s just say that the stereotypes held relatively true for me. I had been baptised as a baby, and I had attended Christmas services a few times, and that pretty much summed up my religious experience. So, this was by no means a “normal” event for me, and my images of bikini-clad sixth-graders was all but dashed away. (Though this would take an interesting turn)
I stated very clearly that I did not want to go. And I was told that I didn’t have to go, as long as I reimbursed my parents for the registration fee.
Now, in retrospect, this can be seen in many ways. One could look at it such that a fifth grader has virtually no money to speak of, and very few opportunities to obtain money, thus the offer was academic and not unlike offering a slave the opportunity to buy themselves out of servitude. Another way to look at it is that I wanted to go to camp, and my parents laid out money for me to do so, thereby teaching me several important life lessons in one swoop.
Personally, I believe the latter, and appreciate that my parents did not cater to my every whim. Frankly, I’ve seen some of my peers who grew up that way, and many of them became colossal fuckups upon finding themselves in a world that most assuredly does not cater to their whims.
I’m getting off track here.
Anyway, camp was on my agenda. I boarded the school bus with the other dysfunctional kids, and began the multi-hour journey.
Shortly after arrival, I was assigned the Otter cabin with three criminals from my school district.
(note: I am not in this picture, but this is the cabin I was in.)
The week of camp had a fairly set agenda:
Morning:
Get tormented by the three kids in the cabin who were friends from another school.
Eat breakfast.
Go to Bible study
Afternoon:
Eat lunch
Work on making a birdhouse for Jesus (yes, really)
Complain to counselor / staff about being tormented
Wander aimlessly until Bible study
Evening:
Bible study
Dinner
More torment
Now, it’s worth pointing out that the camp was Evangelical, which in many respects, is incompatible with Episcopalian teachings. But what’s probably more important here is that “Bible study” was more “horrifying tales of damnation” than studying the Bible. I can only explain it in a series of short stories:
Born Again
“Born again, born again, truly I am born again. Saved by the blood of the lamb, I am! I am, I’m born again.”
I didn’t really understand why lambs bleeding would “save” me, and I didn’t subscribe to the notion of being reborn. Luckily, I had the sense to ask my counselor after Bible study. He was kind enough to tell me that my life was pretty much wrong until I had come to camp, and that everyone I knew would surely spend an eternity with Satan if they were not born again.
Russians Are Godless Commies
Another night involved a middle-aged man who had allegedly returned from Russia the week before. Keep in mind that this was the late 80′s, and the political landscape was something entirely different.
Well, he went to Russia to help save them, but as it turns out, they didn’t want to be saved. And to prove this point, he showed us all a Sputnik-era propaganda poster depicting a cosmonaut waving in space, with Cyrillic writing.
Naturally, none of us could read Russian, so he “translated” for us.
“See, he’s in space and it says ‘No God here’. The Russians sent cosmonauts in space to look for God, and since they didn’t see him there, the KGB tells everyone there is no God.”
Admittedly, my understanding of world events wasn’t quite what it is today, but I was reasonably sure the man was lying.
So with this package, I had come to the conclusion that there was obviously something very wrong with Christianity, if not religion as a whole.
Near the end of the week, I had almost convinced myself that I was Atheist. These people all claimed to have a “personal relationship with Jesus”, though it was contrary to most of what I knew. They claimed people I knew were going to Hell, yet, those people sent me here.
It was all very confusing, until the last night, when a girl named Marie offered me a cigarette. It was dinnertime, and she stopped me on my way to the dining hall. I don’t remember exactly why I took her up on the offer, since I was rabid towards smokers at the tme, but I did, and we both went in to the girls bathroom. She was impressed that I didn’t cough (which is probably attributable to my parents being smokers at the time, and the fact that I wasn’t inhaling because I didn’t know how). My overwhelming maturity prompted her to ask “Do you wanna see my boobs?”, and before I could say “yes”, she showed me, then left.
Indeed, God works in mysterious ways. My faith was restored.
(Yes, this is all entirely true.)
