This summer, I have had the honor of planning and leading three weeks of Unitarian Universalist day camp — Portland Chalice Camp. It was the inaugural summer of what we hope will be a long tradition. This year we had one week of leadership training for middle and high school students, and two weeks of elementary camp. As an intergenerational community of elementary-age campers, middle school counselors-in-training, or CITs, high school counselors, and caring adults, we played, explored, worshipped, created, connected, and renewed our spirits together.
Over three weeks, we served 40 young people ages 5-17 from five different UU congregations in Portland. Seeing the campers forge friendships, sink into time in nature, and make all kinds of visual, theatrical, and musical creations together was amazing. And, seeing the ways that our CITs and Counselors grew in leaps and bounds, becoming more confident in their leadership skills, opening up to both siliness and boundary-setting, and forming their own close bonds was nothing short of magical. It all reminded me of why the relationships formed at camp are so important, and why Unitarian Universalist Camp is essential to our faith movement.
Though UU camp is new for us in Portland, I want to tell you a little bit of the significance of camp in my life in hopes that we might continue to build and grow this tradition. I grew up going to a secular family camp that was nestled along the South Fork of the Tuolumne River three miles from Yosemite Park. It was a haven for me. We kids were free to roam in the forest, scramble over rocks, form friendships, drift in and out of the arts and crafts area, and take some time alone under the trees.
As a camper in my elementary and middle school years, I was in awe of the camp staff, and was delighted when they affirmed my interest in helping and participating in camp life. Though I only knew them for a week or two out of the year, the care and love that they beamed into me and the other kids was transformative — I felt able to be myself and shine. Most of the staff were teenagers or in their early twenties, and in my eyes, they were the definition of cool, but Cynthia, the kitchen supervisor, was older and was the matriarch of camp. She welcomed my friends and me to help prepare meals, telling stories with us about camp history, and listening to our questions and dreams. Though she probably had plenty of “real” work to do, she shared her attention and love with us. It was a lesson in blending the work of living together with the blessings of community, amidst the backdrop of natural awe and wonder in the forest.
Similarly, when I went with my 5th-grade class to outdoor school for a week, my instructor Joie conveyed a deep sense of care and belonging to me. Her gift to us was that she honored our questions and wonderings, and showed us the truly interwoven web of life — and that we were each a part of it. She helped us feel our own power and responsibility, affirming our participation in the group, awakening a sense of awe while watching hawks catch the thermals over the bluffs, and practicing the careful trail ethics of “leave no trace”. That week helped me feel alive and connected to the world, and feel really seen and valued by an adult in a way that I hadn’t felt before. Tragically, just months later, that summer she became one of the three women who was targeted and killed in Yosemite Park.
Her death sparked a deep sense of injustice for me — not so much for her own life, but for the lives of all of the other kids who she should have been able to teach and transmit the same fierce love and groundedness to as she had to me. I was angry that so many other kids had been robbed of the opportunity to be treated like full human beings, to feel their place in the wider family of the world, and to build community on the foundation of care and respect for one another.
As a result, I’ve spent nearly every summer since I was fourteen working at camps, winding my way up from Counselor-in-Traning to Instructor to Director, but it wasn’t until my second year of seminary that I learned there were Unitarian Universalist summer camps. That year I had the honor of serving as a chaplain at two of them, sleepaway camps in Texas and in Southern California. Seeing the synergy of these two worlds I love — Unitarian Universalism and summer camp — has only made me love camp more and be more convinced of its value for both youth and adults.
Caring leaders like Cynthia and Joie showed me not just about the world around me, but about my own internal world and how connecting with and giving back to the community around me could be deeply fulfilling. Without knowing it, they exemplified William Ellery Channing’s words about the purpose of religious education, which is “not to stamp our minds irresistibly on the young, but to stir up their own; .. not to give them a definite amount of knowledge, but to touch inward springs; so that they may discern and approve for themselves what is everlastingly right and good.” Rather than expecting me to do something their way, Cynthia, Joie, and countless other teachers and mentors gave me the gift of strengthening my own voice, listening to my own heart, and telling the stories of myself and my community, rather than just repeating old tales.
I believe that our young leaders over these past few weeks have done the same for our campers. Many times, I heard them ask, “Well, what do you think?” as a first response to a weighty question. Many times, I saw them move beyond their occasional shyness and self-consciousness to play silly, laughter-filled games with the campers. Many times, I watched as they gracefully balanced setting boundaries for safety and forming deep and caring relationships with the campers.
Through the combination of these caring relationships and spending time together outdoors, over the years I have realized that camp is a spiritual pursuit. And over these past three weeks, the importance of a spiritually grounded camp community that conveys and lives the values of Unitarian Universalism has been shown to me again. Our purpose we held going into the summer was to build a model of what a healthy, multi-age UU community could look like, and I was awed as we created it each week.
Early in our Leadership Training week, our counselors and CITs identified some of the characteristics of certain other camps that they did NOT want Portland Chalice Camp to be like. We called this fictional, boring, frustrating camp, “That Camp”. At “That Camp”, the counselors were not engaged and didn’t seem to care about getting to know the campers. At “That Camp”, much of the time was spent inside, with the same dusty board games or dried out markers, and the experience of being a camper was bewildering and disconnected. At “That Camp”, discipline was either harshly punitive, or completely lacking, fostering an environment ripe for secretive bullying. “That Camp” was a place for kids to stay out of trouble while their parents were at work, not a place built to nurture and honor their wisdom, creativity, and empathy. Our counselors vowed to make sure that Chalice Camp was not “That Camp” and they sought to connect with the campers, get to know them, and talk with them about feelings and concerns when things went wrong.
As we enjoyed the three weeks of camp, I was reminded, as I always am, of the fullness of each child’s emotional and spiritual world. We shared joys and concerns at worship each day, and the depth of feeling and magnitude of concern was the same as in any congregation of adults. Family deaths and illnesses, concern for self or friends facing difficult circumstances, joy and anticipation for celebrations, and worry and uncertainty about the state of the world. In our wider mainstream culture, and often even in families, churches, and schools, this real and vivid emotional landscape that children have is frequently dismissed or diminished. At camp, we have the opportunity to support one another in these moments and feelings.
This summer at Elementary Camp, we wove together these strands of faith, nature, community, and self-expression as we built camp together. Each day had a theme and a story to ground it, with activities, discussions and opportunity for connection, and plenty of time for free choice and play.
We built community together, and one change that happened each week sticks out in my mind. When we needed to get everyone together, the leader would give a wolf call, and kids would come running. Everyone had ten seconds to make a “toes touching toes circle”, with everybody in it.
At first, every time, the first kids would crowd close to me or the other leader, and there would be much jostling and bumping and urgent arguing to make the circle. We had to pump up the circle like a bicycle tire, to expand and make room for everyone. After a few days though, the group learned to start forming the circle so that it was wide enough for everyone in the first place. To me, that is what true welcome and community looks like — expanding the circle so that there is room for everyone as soon as they show up, so that they feel seen and honored and part of the group.
Maya Angelou said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” When camp experiences are enacted with care and attention, they create spaces and communities where campers feel that they are part of something larger than themselves, seen for who they are, connected with the natural world, and engaged in the beloved community. This feeling of grounding and belonging is what enables us to live out our faith in the larger world throughout our lives.
Unitarian Universalism needs camp. We need it for our own existing communities, as a place to gather ourselves, restore, learn, and grow together; to cross-pollinate ideas and spiritual practices among our neighboring congregations in the region; to give our children a tangible understanding of beloved community. Across the country, many young adults who were raised UU drift away from our faith after high school. But often, those who do stay cite camps, conferences, and inter-church youth gatherings as central to their love of and commitment to our faith. There, they have felt welcomed even when they don’t fit in elsewhere, encouraged to grow and develop their own voice, and empowered to know and trust their hearts and minds.
It is my hope that this is just the first of many years of Portland Chalice Camp, that this is the jumping-off point for many youth and children in our church and the others in Portland to become part of a loving and caring UU summer community that can carry into the rest of the year as well. My hope is that they can see one another on Sunday mornings, and to widen the circle of joy and caring to other people in the Learning Community who haven’t been to camp yet, and that they continue the camp spirit into their lives and the wider world.
I’ll leave you with words adapted from our Chalice Camp chalice lighting. Every day, in every interaction, may we be reminded of the divine spark in all of creation, may we practice the power of love to heal what is broken, and may we be grateful for life’s blessings each day.
Please join me in prayer.
Spirit of life and love, spirit of sorrow and joy, spirit of play and creation, be with us in our hearts. Help us to feel and see and believe the ways that we are all connected to one another. Help us to honor the wisdom and the truth in every person we encounter, no matter their age. May we continue to build communities of support and resilience, and may we always seek to make the circle wider, bringing in all who would like to belong with us. May we widen the circles of our hearts, of our congregations, of our camps and our communities, until we live in a world where truly, everyone belongs. May we sing of love as we work toward justice and freedom for all. May it be so, amen.
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