A Letter From Family Camp: It’s Late Summer

Some things remain the same and never change, while others are noticeably different.

The lake is as beautiful as ever, and so is that mountain air, so fresh and clean that even if you didn’t think you had a sinus condition or congestion, after 24 hours in this air, you find yourself simply breathing easier. It doesn’t take that long for you to feel your blood pressure drop as you sit by the still lake at dusk on that first night. Listening to the happy sounds of children and their families behind you, but in front of you is God’s creation in all its powerfully quiet glory.

The clear sky, the tangerine-orange sun, setting behind the tall pines at the end of the lake where the covered bridge sits. A lone rowboat in the still water and its pilot sitting, casting, waiting for a blue gill or a smallmouth bass to bite. But just as happy and content if the fish take the night off.

The sounds of nature you so easily tune out back home are now overpowering you — a symphony of birds still chirping before they settle for the evening, and a cacophony of insects buzzing, and crickets cricketing. Even in the air, you can already start to feel the oncoming fall that drops those leaves here a little before it gets to those leaves back home. It's late summer.

Peace. Peace settles in, an inner peace, and you don’t need to remind yourself why you came here once again to live in cabins that are as comfortable as they can be, but still, they are cabins without so many of the comforts of home. Yet the deeper you get into the week, you find yourself sleeping in longer, more deeply, more restfully. Deep sleeps without any dreams. Solid sleeps, only to wake up and be greeted once again by that same late-summer sun and a day of possibilities.

Want to canoe or take a kayak out? No problem. How about a sailboat? It’s all there. Perhaps you want to swim or fish? The lake and the sun and all that fresh air beckon. Maybe you feel like a hike to the top of the mountain to see all of this all from a hawk’s eye view. Just put some good shoes on and go.

Too much nature? Try the craft shop, or perhaps a game of pickleball, volleyball or basketball. There’s always someone else looking for someone else to join in, and in the process, you make a new friend, or strengthen a friendship you already had.

The moms and dads are on the lakefront beach in the sand, watching the kids and helping them dig and build sandcastles. Grandmothers and grandfathers are spending long stretches with grandchildren they may see all of the time but never enough. Or they may be spending quality time with grandchildren who they only get to see at times like this and on the occasional holiday.

Walks are taken, conversations are had, the inner child emerges, and the kids get a glimpse of that child in the eyes of their fathers’ fathers. Silliness is the norm at this lake. It’s late summer.

People who never sing at any other time of the year find themselves singing songs they know by heart reflexively as others do the same without even realizing they’re singing out loud and others can hear them. And they don’t care. 

College kids working on the staff of the camp play guitars at just about every juncture of the daily routine — before morning kids' activities, before lunch and dinner, at the evening campfire. No piped-in music. The sing-alongs are often in the background, the soundtrack for the week, where kids, moms and dads, and their moms and dads belt out the words to “We’re Going to Kentucky” and other songs. 

You have long talks with your favorite toddler crumb-cruncher about things such as Bigfoot, and why the stern of a sailing ship has something called a “poop deck.” You enjoy the sound of his innocent laughter every time he tells someone else about that tree branch that whacked you in the face when you weren’t looking on the hiking trail.

You’re reassured every time he seeks out a puddle to jump in, mud to slide in, and a frog or a caught fish to pick up with his own hands and put back into nature. Boyhood lives on in late summer.

Some things never change. In this part of the world, you can’t get cell service, and the camp intentionally restricts wifi access to one little purposefully uncomfortable corner of the camp. You didn’t come here to read and return emails, but you can if you must.

But some things do change.

Camp directors talk more about building projects than they talk about the most valuable building projects – the children. Generation Z camp staffers have mastered the art of pretending you don’t exist when they walk by you, which is unlike their predecessors, who always greeted every camper with a pleasant smile and a “Hello.”

Every now and then, you get the sense that one or two of these staffers may be proudly on the LGBTQ spectrum, which is something you’d rather not have noticed, because it’s precisely that kind of thinking you were trying to escape for this week.

At breakfast, in a large dining hall filled with people wearing all sorts of comfortable and inoffensive attire, it’s that one guy at the table across from you who’s wearing the t-shirt that says “Resist” on the front that you notice at first. 

For a moment, you wonder how he might react if you had come to breakfast wearing a MAGA hat, but you let that thought pass quickly, along with any other thoughts of your dining hall neighbor before you refill that coffee cup and venture out into the world that really matters to you. He's already forgotten before you open the door to leave the building. No t-shirt and no social trend can ruin this day or this week. The world under those pines and spruces alongside that lake was here before you, and it will be here long after you. It’s late summer.

Humbling? Yes. Spiritual? Most definitely. It’s a place that compels you in your quiet moments to talk to God and almost inevitably give Him thanks for all that he has created, making it possible for you to enjoy it — all of it — with those whom you love.