I’ve been thinking a lot about an old English teacher, Faye Hardin, who passed away in 2019. She was a tough old bag. Some twenty years ago when I had her my senior year, there were students in my class whose parents and grandparents had her as a teacher. She pushed students harder than most–to […]
Tag: camp
Changing Trains
There’s this moment after leaving the Secaucus station where the train ducks into a tunnel, and the deeper into the dark it goes, the quicker the air pressure changes as if to suck the little sickle cell up the vein to the heart of Manhattan. From under the Hudson, all the passengers are adjusting their […]
Autumn on Shelter Island
Shelter Island is brimming with the colors of autumn. The trees are surrendering their leaves eagerly, and gold and crimson paint the landscape against a still-green grass. Needless to say, I am mesmerized by it, caught up in an awe that leaves me wandering around the island – quite literally – as though I’ve been […]
Transient Paths of All the Creatures of the Field
There’s a family of groundhogs that have been hanging around my house lately. They are joined, strangely enough, by the sudden return of deer who avoided the island like the plague when the summer crowds first arrived on Memorial Day. Some have been brave enough to get within a few feet or so. And driving […]
When Surface-Level Religion Meets a Psychology of Depth, or Why Camp (or Something Like It) Could Replace Church
Tomorrow morning, thousands of families will pack into their cars – some wearing their Sunday best, others in jeans and a t-shirt – and head once again to a church service like the one they went to last week. For some, there’ll be a choir decked in robes, lighting of the advent candle, a scripture, […]
Following the Followers on a Trip Down Memory Lane, or My Week at Camp
Sometimes, I can be a really nostalgic person. I think the side of me that loves telling stories is that person. But I love remembering the past not to get stuck there but to help understand the present. Suffice to say, I spent a week last week helping out at a camp I had worked […]
A Trip to Camp, or Surveying the Remnants of Eubanks Bank
Yesterday, as I was driving to visit the church camp I used to work at, I had a moment where I decided that if there’s a hell (and if I go there), I will probably spend eternity in a continuous loop of being forced to drive Highway 641 North between the interstate and Camden on […]
What’s in a Name?
Abner Doubleday, my six year-old puggle, is a pup of many names. Around the time I got him, in 2007, I named him “Abner” because I was on a big baseball kick. I’d recently watched Ken Burns‘ baseball documentary, and I was fascinated by the story of General Doubleday who, as legend has it, founded […]
Troy and the Woodpecker
One of the things I really wish I could understand is why some memories stick with us while others just wash away. It’s almost like some moments in our lives become stories we tell ourselves (and others) over and over, and those stories go beyond just being part of our story-telling cache; they become a […]
saunterings 