From the Charlotte Observer:  I always find my best self at summer camp

Lynne Hinton

Posted: Saturday, Jun. 06, 2009

Lynne Hinton's new book is "The Arms of God."

Every year in June I direct a camp in Blowing Rock for developmentally disabled adults. Since moving to New Mexico, I have at times thought that it's just too expensive and time-consuming to go back every summer, but as the time rolls around I realize I'm not just doing this because it's a charitable thing to do or because the camp needs my help.

I lead this camp, I participate, because it's really the best thing I can do for myself and subsequently, the best thing I can do for my family and for the parish I serve.

At some point during the week of crafts and devotions and sing-alongs, the talent show and shared meals, I remember the person I want to be.

I see the woman I desire to become. I find myself slowing down, paying attention to small things, saying thank you more often, laughing at myself, holding hands with someone. I find myself to be more loving; I have to admit I am happy and relieved to find and be that woman again.

It just seems that so often during the rest of the year, the rest of my life, I hurry through the days and worry through the nights and I'm not always very nice or very hopeful and I look in the mirror and I'm not happy with who I see.

This camp I attend puts me back on the spiritual track I try to follow. It makes me slow down, makes me aware of things going on around me, makes me sing and laugh and reach for the hand of somebody else.

I'm afraid that if I quit going to camp, quit participating in this summer experience, I will lose her forever and that I will not remember how to find her.

So, during a week in June I am in the N.C. mountains. I'm directing a camp called Special Days. I'm playing the guitar. I'm helping with crafts. I'm dancing. I'm serving meals and rocking in a rocking chair. I'm leading devotions and I'm riding the train at Tweetsie Railroad.

And most importantly, I'm finding the woman I want to be.

The good news for my family is that when I come home I plan to bring her back.

Posted July 2009 From the Charlotte Observer

Philip is what would be described as a high-functioning client in the circles of caregivers for those suffering from developmental disabilities. He carries a job, is literate, and manages most of his own personal care. Sometimes when I see him sitting at the table with other staffers at the camp I lead every summer at Blowing Rock Conference Center, I have to think about whether he is a camper or a chaperone, he looks and behaves so “normally.” He is quite a sociable young man and I suppose that is part of the reason his question, posed to me while we danced to Beyonce’s “If you like what you see put a ring on it,” came as such a surprise. We were well into the second hour of the dance. I was shaking and gyrating and grooving, using muscles I forgot I had when he asked his question, jolting me right out of rhythm. “When do you think Jesus is coming back?” That was what he asked just as we met each other’s eyes.

Since I come from a long line of some pretty literal-minded Baptists, I know what Philip was asking. What he wanted to know was whether I thought the rapture would happen in our lifetime or whether it would be later. He could probably even quote me chapter and verse to back up his theory of when the world would end, but I was dancing and I didn’t really want to stop and hold a theological discussion.

The funny thing about his question, however, was that I sort of felt like the second coming of Jesus had already happened. The reign of God, as far as what I know, was breaking out all around me at that very minute Philip asked his question. I saw it when I glanced over to see Jill, a tiny slip of a girl, nonverbal and profoundly disabled, donned in her pink helmet and hugging her teddy bear, standing right in front of the speaker, smiling and rocking in perfect rhythm, perfect rhythm, her face completely at peace. I saw it when Bonnie, a staffer who teaches high school English, wheeled a squealing Johnny, darting in and out of couples and circling the group. I saw the reign of God break out when Larry, a camper who would never even enter the room where we danced in years passed, wore his cowboy hat and a huge grin, camped out in the center of the floor, dancing the entire night.

Bill, now in his sixties and suffering from dementia along with other developmental disabilities, slow-danced with Martha, a young woman who points to pictures to show you what she wants and laughs hysterically when offered cookies and applesauce. Roger, bound to his wheelchair, also profoundly disabled, was lifted up and out by his caregiver and whisked across the floor. Frank held hands with Matthew, swinging their arms back and forth while Debbie, a staffer and survivor of breast cancer twirled by herself, laughing right out loud.

It was all there and it was complete and whole and right. The reign of God, a dance of crooked people, broken people, despised people, all holding each other up, all dancing together, all in perfect delight. “If you like what you see, put a ring on it,” pulsing louder and louder.

“When do you think Jesus is coming back?” Philip asks his question so innocently, so honestly, so desiring of acceptance, so desiring to be seen as normal.

And I look around the room and I bounce from side to side, snap my fingers, dip my knees, fling my hips, and I smile and say, “Philip, he already has. He already has!”

Lynne Hinton is a minister and author. www.LynneHinton.com.