A Week in Sticks and Snippets

It has been quite a week, and I don't mean just the assassination attempt and a Republican National Convention.  My week has been consumed by my volunteer work at Lutheridge, the church camp, where I was the C3ARE leader who does Bible study for the week. I had a co-leader, but it was still exhausting trying to engage 55 middle schoolers.  The campers were doing the Night Owls program, which lets them stay up very late at night, so it's been an adjustment for them.  Wednesday they were lethargic, but there was more energy yesterday.

Let me make a quick list of memorable moments from the past 4 days:

--Yesterday was a good day with the middle school campers.  We reviewed the stories we read, both the Bible stories and the illustrated books.  We went outside and had them create a response that represented their favorite story out of things they found outside (stressing that no destroying of nature could happen, no ripping of plants).  Two groups used sidewalk chalk that they found outside.  Several groups used a combination of sticks and rocks.  One group used the logs in the firewood storage bin.  Two groups did a skit.  It was great.  It built on what we did on Tuesday, and it reminded me that they are paying attention, even when they seem surly and/or lethargic.

--I've enjoyed the meals with other C3ARE leaders; it's been great, getting to know how others are living out their call.

--I've been thinking about camp and about the huge Lutheran youth gathering in New Orleans that is also happening this week.  I've been thinking about how we educate, train, and inspire the next generation, a topic that is so different when we talk about the theory and when we try out those theories with real humans.

--A lot of us work in schools during the school year, so we've had lots of discussions about classrooms too, which is both interesting, but after awhile, tiring.

--It's also been a week of reuniting with people I already knew but don't get to see often.  It's been wonderful, having something else to think about beside the political news and the folks I know with troubling health news, reminders that I am not getting younger.

--I'm also thinking of Biden contracting Covid-19 again.  Will this moment be a turning point when we look back?  Will he bounce back from this infection as he has the others?

--It's also been a week of deaths of famous people, some of whom were very important to me in my younger years, like Bernice Johnson Reagon and Bob Newhart, and some of whom were not as much, like Shelley Duval and Shannon Doherty.  There were very public people, like Dr. Ruth and Richard Simmons, who died this week.

--Yesterday was also the day of confirmation of a rumor that I heard earlier in the week:  my former school, City College (the Florida version, not the famous one in NYC) will close.  There's an announcement on the website about staying open for fall and winter quarter to help students finish, but they're also looking at other options.  I predict that students will be switched to online versions of programs, and that will be that.  I've been feeling a lot of emotions:  happiness that I'm no longer part of that school, sadness that yet another once-solid school has been run into the ground, wondering what the real story is (who buys a school to run it into the ground?  was there another scenario happening?  was it all a land grab?).

Today is likely to be another long day, so let me shift gears and get a walk in before the pace quickens.