You senseless, ignorant, brute beast, you!

(That is how you title a blog about a Psalm.)

I started reading the Psalms a long time ago, checking off all 150 of them (and the 30ish Proverbs) twice a year. It works out nicely and it's a good habit, but if I'm going to be honest, I find a lot of them hard to read and I prefer the short ones. Reading them in order means I don't necessarily get the sad ones when I'm sad, or the happy-praisey ones when I'm abundantly joyful. (Maybe that's for the best?) I can't totally relate (yet) to having mobs of enemies chasing me down, or wetting my bed with tears, or the heart-wrenching betrayal of a good friend. To my untrained eyes and mind, lots of them seem indistinguishable, and often I read them out of duty, not the passion or curiosity I ought to read them with.

But every now and then, one of them will grab me by the collar and punch me in the face, as God's Word often does. This is what happened with Psalm 73. [Hey, I conveniently linked it so you can read it if you want. It's not too long, I swear.]

Asaph wrote it. He confesses some surprising stuff for a guy who penned part of the Bible. "Why do the bad guys get to have all the fun?" he asks. They're a bunch of nasty, proud dudes, and they get all the perks, and they never get any comeuppance. They're carefree and violent, they put people down and take advantage of them, and they scoff at God, and they get rich doing it. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure these sorts still exist today.

Poor Asaph: He's worked and worked and kept his standards and remained pure and fought the good fight and everything, and what has it bought him? Plague and Punishment.

"Life is rough, I tell ya, so rough..."
"How rough is it?"
"So rough I almost betrayed God's children by speaking my mind!"

Okay, so Asaph's no Rodney Dangerfield. But he's presented his issue - he's starting to feel this jealousy of the bad dudes coming on, and he juuuuust about speaks his mind but stops short. To do so, it seems, would have been an act of betrayal that bordered on blasphemy.

Good on him for not doing it though. He came to his senses. "I almost slipped, lost my foothold" he says to kick off the Psalm. At least he has a foothold, right? And he remembers - these bad dudes are set for destruction. For real.

So he realizes his error. Maybe the only thing more foolish than someone without understanding is someone who has it, but envies someone who doesn't have it. Asaph caught himself doing that and stopped short. The Israelites couldn't often say the same. I dare say I'm not so prudent, either.

"It ain't worth it, man," Asaph seems to realize.

And here's the part that really clocked me: Verses 21 and 22: "When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, I was senseless and ignorant, a brute beast before you."

A Biblical writer, calling himself senseless, ignorant, a brute beast. In God's presence.

Really?

That's not how I want to picture myself in front of God. I'm working hard to be pure, to obey Him. I'm a good Christian, aren't I? I want so badly to picture myself with dignity before Him.

But nobody approaches the throne with dignity, do they? When you stand before God, it's all gone. Nothing left. Filthy rags and all that. I've got nothing of my own to stand on.

A big, dumb, senseless, ignorant, brute beast really isn't a bad metaphor for a human in front of God. Like a cow with a vacant stare, but without its strength or delicious meat.

Undignified, like David - who voluntarily let his dignity go when he danced in the buff.

But what follows is beautiful: Even as a senseless beast, "You hold my hand," Asaph says, "and guide me, and take me into glory." Lest there be any doubt, even in that undignified state, we serve a good and loving God. We have the advocacy of Christ on the cross.

That's a comforting thought.

Though the evildoers prosper around him, "Earth has nothing I desire, but you" Asaph says. May it be the same for me.

Good point, Mr. Chambers.

Lately, I am a man of few words. So I'll share someone else's:

Fellowship in the Gospel

"After sanctification it is difficult to state what your aim in life is, because God has taken you up into his purpose by the Holy Ghost; He is using you now for His purposes throughout the world as He used His Son for the purpose of our salvation. If you seek great things for yourself - "God has called me for this and that" - you are putting a barrier to God's use of you. As long as you have a personal interest in your own character, or any set ambition, you cannot get through into identification with God's interests. You can only get there by losing forever any idea of yourself and by letting God take you right out into His purpose for the world, and because your goings are of the Lord, you can never understand your ways.

I have to learn that the aim in life is God's, not mine. God is using me from His great personal standpoint, and all he asks of me is that I trust Him, and never say - "Lord, this gives me such heartache." To talk in that way makes me a clog. When I stop telling God what I want, He can catch me up for what He wants without let or hindrance. He can crumple me up or exalt me, He can do anything He chooses. He simply asks me to have implicit faith in Himself and in His goodness. Self-pity is of the devil; if I go off on that line I cannot be used by God for His purpose in the world. I have "a world within the world" in which I live, and God will never be able to get me outside it because I am afraid of being frost-bitten.

-Oswald Chambers' My Utmost for His Highest, November 10.

I am constantly seeking great things for myself - the next career move, fulfillment in relationships, financial success comfort stability, a fully articulated 10-year plan, etc. And here is the much-needed reminder of my need to utterly abandon myself and stop dictating my plans to God. It's my prayer that I'll remember this tomorrow, and the next day, and that one day I won't need reminders anymore.

Win now

I have semi-religiously watched nearly every single Tigers game this season. By "watched," I mean either I physically attended (okay, that's just one game) or literally watched via MLB.TV (at least parts of 100-130 games) or checked scores on my SmartypantsPhone (often suspiciously, or surreptitiously, or more like "aw screw it, I don't care if they see me checking baseball scores or not.") I have all-too-often known the scores, and often the counts, and could usually be relied upon for trustworthy information and stats by less devoted, more casual fans.

You wonder how someone can be that interested in a 162-game season? I don't, not anymore. It gives me somewhat of a window into how someone could pay attention to all 80ish NBA games. (I don't know the real number, and I don't care because the NBA is stupid and nobody could possibly be interested in all 80ish games. Or so I thought.) You really have to love the game, have a dog in the fight, or love the game and have a dog in the fight.

This is how you care about 162 games: You watch your team fight for first place, maintain it, put it away, and clinch a playoff spot. Even the worst teams (except the very worst - sorry Cubs and Astros fans) stay mathematically in it until the last couple weeks of the season. Then, suddenly it's the playoffs and every game actually does matter, as much as a sporting event can matter.

So the Tigers made the playoffs and I hoped for the best. They weren't favorites by any means. They ousted the A's, who were widely regarded as one of the best stories in baseball this year because they won, and they shouldn't have won. Pretty much. But the Tigers beat 'em.

Then they swept the Yanks. And the story wasn't "Wow, the Tigers sure are good," it was "wow, what's wrong with the Yankees?" Naturally, we Tigers faithful were incensed. But we swept 'em.

Then, we got five cursed days off before we played the Giants.

The Giants? What in the world were they doing there?

Oh well. I didn't hate the Giants. Yet.

So we waited through those five awful, boring days off to see our team play again. And they presumably sat around and waited for the Cards to take care of business.

But no. The Giants.

The stupid Giants.

They should have been eliminated, but played and won three games with their backs against the wall. They made the series on bonus time. Borrowed time. No pressure. And if you've watched the World Series games (and YOU BETTER HAVE) you probably saw that. They're loose. Screwing around in the dugout. Man, I hate the Giants now.

I freaking hate the Giants.

I didn't hate the Rangers. I respected them. We weren't supposed to beat them. Last year in the ALCS we were old and rickety and hurt and tired. No, we had no business there. We were overmatched. We could have played way over our heads and still lost.

But we're better than the Giants. We are, aren't we? I thought we were. But now we can't even buy a base hit.

We're better than we're playing. I'd have a lot less of an issue with us losing the World Series team if the Tigers were at least playing their best. Not beating themselves.

Game one, we were rusty. Game two, a few bad breaks early on, then we forgot how to hit. Game three, back home, and - nope, still can't hit.

Tonight, in about 25 minutes, game four starts. It might be our last game of the year. So they have to win now. But - teams don't come back from being down 3-0 in the World Series. I just pray they don't get swept. They have to win now.

If they survive tonight - hey, they've got Justin Verlander tomorrow. Best pitcher in the game. Win that one, then you've only got two more to win. And there might be some pressure on the Giants.

It probably won't happen. If it does, it will be the most thrilling thing in sports in my lifetime.

You can always say "hey, there's always next year." True. The Tigers will get better next year, I think. Victor Martinez will be the DH, not Delmon "ALCS MVP by some miracle" Young. (I can't fault Young, though. I'd rather have a guy who sucks all year and comes up big in the playoffs like him, than - dare I say it? - a guy like Prince Fielder who smashed the ball all year and has done nothing but whiff in the playoffs.) And our pitching is great. And all that.

But I hate that thinking. The odds are severely against your team getting back to the World Series. Get there and win it. Win it now, while you're there. We wait, and watch 162 games (some of us) for this kind of opportunity.

Win it now, guys. Show up tonight.

Artprize and art and our fine city

Artprize rages on in Grand Rapids.

For you non-Grandrapidians who read this, it's a huge annual art contest in which a rich family in our city hands out a cool quarter-mill to whoever the public thinks brought the best piece, and $100,000 to whoever the Art Critics choose.

For us locals who vote on who should get the big chunk of change, it's probably more about getting downtown when it's full of people than it is about taking in art. We're all swelling with local pride of late, and maybe it lends some legitimacy to our city to see the sidewalks crawling like a "real" city.

So we all flock downtown to gawk at the good and the bad. Really, I think almost all of us do. I made my second trip downtown last night. I've covered... let's see... Devos Place, Amway, JW, Ah-Nab-Awen Park, and the GRAM. I've seen about half of the public vote's top 25, and three of the critics' top 25.

You'll note that there must be some disparity between the critical top 25 and the popular top 25. I'm hoping that over the next few nights I'll get a chance to see the ones that are getting more critical buzz.

John Waters, an arty director whose arty movies I haven't seen, said in a recent local interview that the art world is controlled by two small groups of people who wear all black and live in London and New York. So I guess that puts Grand Rapids a little... out of the way, and I assume Artprize's reputation among the art community isn't terribly distinguished.

GQ would agree. In their article, they affirmed some things local artists have said since the first year, that Artprize attracts a lot of kitsch and, when left in public hands, the most accessible thing tends to win out. Each of the winners from the first three years has had plenty of detractors - not for technical skill, but for content. The first year, it was a painting/sculpture of waves. Then a huge pencil drawing recreation of a military regiment. Then an image of a crucifix (pandering, they assume, cuz Grand Rapids is so Christiany.)

The article, by a writer from New York, seemed to imply that we're a bunch of Midwesterners who don't get "it," trying to break into the Art world, choosing crap over more art-community-ordained stuff.

Naturally, we flipped out. We always do. When people write articles like that one, they usually end up on the local news, and people get offended, and the mayor writes letters to defend our fine city. I think there are a lot of people here excited about the trajectory of Grand Rapids, hoping that we'll "arrive" in our lifetime, that the world will take us seriously or something. Just as our hearts flutter when outsiders notice us as a hidden gem, we bristle when they don't acknowledge us as a cultural epicenter.

I think Grand Rapids will have arrived when we can all shrug off criticism and strut quietly while the haters hate (or the noticers notice, or whatever). Grand Rapids doesn't need indy cred or validation from big city people and big city writers and national media.

Personally, I like it just the way it is.

Artprize is a ton of fun and we have reason to be excited, to see our downtown crawling with people, to run into our suburban neighbors in the UICA or on Monroe or Ottawa. Artprize doesn't make our reputation. It isn't something that makes us a cool city, but rather, a symptom of a cool city.

All that being said, there is some legitimately good art down there - and I should know, with my amateur photography skills and my communications degree from my Midwestern school.

I find myself increasingly relying on my gut reactions to make decisions and evaluate things, especially in regards to art. I'm attracted to art that is shocking or surprising - like these vases, which upon closer inspection actually correlate with historical data of cities - or so masterfully done that I would drive out of my way to come back and see it - like these graphite drawings of the Chicago Seven.

I stood there and talked to two artists my first night out there as the venues were closing. One had brought a pretty pedestrian piece, in my opinion, and the other had created the masterpiece graphite drawings I mentioned above. I am one of tens of thousands of people who probably wouldn't dedicate the time and thought to art if not for Artprize. For me to be standing there, hearing some guy from Rockford tell me about his sculpture, or marveling at the detail on those Chicago buildings while the creator looked on - that's a pretty unique thing.

church

Here's a scenario:

Bob and Mike meet.

They soon discover a mutual interest in following Christ.

They decide that they should partner up and do this together.

So they meet regularly, bringing their wives and their kids all together to talk about Jesus.

They read their Bible. They praise God, often in song or poetry.

Over time, their gatherings grow and a few other friends and families begin to attend as well.

They don't write up a statement of faith or anything, but they never get into any weird, unorthodox stuff.

They begin a few traditions, a few standards (think: meeting every other Saturday afternoon, favoring discussion over a sermon, using recliners instead of pews, singing a capella because no one's a musician, no age division, laser lights, arm-wrestling, an occasional post-church stein-hoist). They've got a culture of sorts.

Maybe some of their customs and traditions and methods are unique, or even a little strange. So much so that it might not feel like church to a church-going outsider.

So what is this gathering? Is it a church? Is it the church?

What does it mean if we call Bob and Mike's as-yet-unnamed gatherings "church?"

We're past the point of assuming a church is a building, right? Lots of churches start and meet in people's basements. We'll call their gatherings a church.

So if it's just a couple of dudes and some friends gathering weekly to follow Christ, unusual traditions and all... does this thing, suddenly a "church," immediately get lumped in with the rest of the church (or churches) as a sacred institution? Are they part of the Holy Priesthood, entrusted with the Great Commission, held accountable for all of its blessed finances and how they spend every penny? Holders of the talents while The King is away?

Is every church subject to scrutiny as a sacred institution, or can a church simply be a community of people seeking Christ with their own customs, much like any other earthly, human community - chamber of commerce, moose lodge, Boy Scouts, sewing circle, carving club - except focused on following Christ? Are there sacred churches and non-sacred ones? Where do you draw that line, and what separates them? Rigidly structured organization?

I ask these questions because I have often, in the past, been a bit of a church cynic. "Can't believe they spent money on that." "Why aren't they doing (insert thing I suddenly started thinking was deathly important while in college)?" "What's a "liturgy?" "Why is there no liturgy?" "They should really talk more about (insert thing they didn't talk about the week I was there.)"

I am beginning to think that maybe it's no big deal for a church to have some customs that I don't really identify with, or to lack some that I really do, or to use their money in ways that I wouldn't immediately think to, and simply trust that they probably know what they're doing and don't need me to get all teenage-angsty about it.

I suppose I pose those questions in defense of weird churches.

In the end, there are far more important things to consider about a church than how much money they put into their multimedia, or what the worship team is wearing. For example, what its members are doing the other six days of the week.

Bona Fide Tropical Storm Isaac

When I first moved here in November 2010, it was the tail end of hurricane season. Hurricane Tomas had just passed through the Caribbean, and left a whole bunch of crap on our beach. I resented the cleanup, but as a storm-loving Midwestern boy, I was not-so-quietly hopeful that maybe I'd get to see one of them in my time here. With 2010's season having drawn to a close, I looked forward to 2011.

Last year, we did get a brief visit from Maria. The storm migrated north of Puerto Rico so I took my big, heavy storm shutters down and left them on the ground outside my bedroom window. That night, Maria grew a tentacle that dangled down and swept across Puerto Rico from west to east while the rest of the storm floated north into the Atlantic. As I was laying in bed, the wind picked up and sprayed rain through my windows and kicked around the storm shutters outside. Mostly, I objected to the loud clanging and scraping of metal on concrete at 3 in the morning.

The next morning, we found that the awning in front of our dining hall had been picked up and heaved into our playground. Boom, no more monkey bars. I picked up the storm shutters behind my house and took a mental note that they were to be kept up in any storm threat, lest I lay there and shudder in the mist and hear them clang around again someday.

I had missed out on Irene, which came a few weeks earlier while I was in Michigan.

And that was it for 2011.

So in 2012, by the middle of June, I was checking the National Hurricane Center website everyday, wondering what was coming, trying to get psyched up for a good storm, secretly hoping that I might get to see one.

Fast forward to August 23, 2012. Enter Isaac. He was born just off the coast of west Africa, and within a week had rumbled across the Atlantic and declared himself a legitimate Tropical Storm. (Tropical Storms in progress, for the record, have fairly detailed Wikipedia pages.)

With my time in the tropics winding down, I decided that a bonafide Tropical Storm would be A-OK. Less cleanup, less potential for death than a real hurricane, but with all of the spectacle of something as yet unseen for me.

There are no hurricane sirens here in PR, from what I'm told. I guess they'd be redundant since as soon as we're in a potential path, we're all talking about them and facebooking them and stuff. We get all worked up, and the night before they hit - by then we know if they're close enough to do damage - people pack the grocery stores to stock up on the basics. The paranoid, conscientious Midwestern boy I am, I was well supplied days ahead of time. Remember, I'd been watching since June.

The day before, we put the storm shutters up, and I caulk the gap underneath my back door where rain loves to seep in from even an average rainfall. I can only imagine what it's gonna do with a tropical storm. It's weird, you stand out there and watch the waves lap up onshore, and the sun is shining, and there's this impossibly humongous beast lingering just over the horizon, ready to mess up your world, and you'd never know it.

Then the big night: Nothing happens.

I wake up the next morning. and the sun is shining and the birds are chirping. I brew some sun tea. I would have done the crossword, if I'd had one. All of Puerto Rico has the day off, but we spend it in staff meetings as long as we have power. I check the satellite images, and the center of the storm is about fifty miles south of us, but we're well within its wingspan. Where's the storm?

By 3:00 pm, gray clouds are coasting overhead, and little raindrops are falling. The wind picks up, the trees sway, and soon there's an average rainstorm going on.

But it lasts.

And lasts.

The back half of the storm, it turns out, is pretty good. The waves kick up, splashing over the beach into our backyard. Soon, I've got a pond back there, and the Caribbean just beyond.

It all picks up. And the wind howls. I lay there and watch a movie as the rain comes down in sheets and the palm trees bang their heads like awkward teenage concertgoers. Eventually I go to bed with the wind blowing and the rain pelting outside my bedroom window.

In all, we get about 20 hours of big waves, strong winds, and a lot of rain. There's nothing really dangerous in all of it, save for the flash floods in some communities. We never even lost power. But: my thirst for a good storm is quenched.

And though all I dealt with this time was paranoia - and a some cleanup the next few days, I bet - I have to wonder how different this would be if we'd been in the middle of a real hurricane, one of those 110 mph affairs, not some minor tropical storm centered 50 miles to the south. My house sits probably 20 yards from the Caribbean, which advances a little bit each year on our property. It was nothing for it to wash up and fill our backyard with water and beach sand. There's a basketball court out there somewhere that crumbled into the ocean. If you go down the street into the barrio, you'll see uninhabitable houses at the sea-end of every street that have collapsed into the encroaching water.

These houses... they're not going to last forever.

I'm heading back to Michigan in a few days, weather-permitting. We'll just see what this guy does in the meantime. At the time of this writing, it has a 50% chance of becoming a tropical storm in the next 48 hours. My flight is Wednesday....

EDIT: Pretty sure that guy out in the Atlantic is going North.

"me" as a four-letter word

A good Christian book should give you a nice, solid gut-punch. If it doesn't, go find something else to read.

I just read The Freedom of Self Forgetfulness by Tim Keller (Dude, that's 99 cents on Amazon for the Kindle edition.) It's a short book - only 30-40 minutes to read it, but well worth it if you've got an e-reader. (Go buy it, go now.)

Keller argues, in a more eloquent and exhaustive way than can be blogged, that we shouldn't think too highly or lowly of ourselves, but rather we ought to just... not think of ourselves. Self-forgetfulness and all that. Humility, it's said, isn't thinking less of ourselves, it's thinking of ourselves less. Dwelling on self-esteem is fruitless. There's no need to compare yourself to others. There's no sense in considering how you're going to prove yourself.

For whatever reason, "self" has become a big, horrible word for me lately. I was convicted this summer as I processed our activities and reflected on them that there was way way waaaay too much me in there.

How did I do?
Was I ready for this?
What does this say about me?
How does this reflect me?
...What's next for me?

That last one, especially.

Do we all do this, or is it just me?

(See, there I go thinking about myself again.)

It's a natural tendency to view the thing that you're responsible for as yours. You're running the show. You're (sort of) controlling things. If you're not there, it might not happen. Consequently, you slap your forehead when you forget and pat yourself on the back when you succeed.

And then... It's kind of horrifying to stop yourself and realize that you're thinking about the ministry you're in as yours, and that you're aligning its impact and efficiency with your own, and gauging its success primarily on your own perceptions and feelings. The pressure and back-patting are healthy and relevant to some degree, but the problem comes when its the first thing you go to when you plan, respond, and reflect.

I am guilty of thinking of myself first, and it goes deeper than this ministry. It digs deep into my entire spiritual life.

Deep down, I realize that I am obsessed with my spiritual sufficiency and my spiritual progress, and that I view the world as my story starring me.

Man, all I think about is me sometimes.

"Am I growing closer to God?"

I no longer view that as an innocent, relevant, or even positive question. To approach it grammatically, I am supposed to be the object, not the subject. No matter how badly I want to build myself and prove myself, I am little more than a forgiven recipient of the love of Christ. I have no ground to stand on. There is nothing I can do, no progress that I can make, that can change the way God loves me. Even at my worst - especially at my worst - he would still send Jesus to die for me.

As such, if I have to accept that as true for myself, I have to accept it as true for everyone.

So I've got nothing on you.

And there's no sense in framing everything around myself. And there's no one in the world I've got any right to compare myself to or look down on, or despise, or withhold any of the entire breadth of the love that Christ has shown me. So I better get busy simply imitating the love of Christ, and get my eyes off myself.

I believe that this is a long-standing work-in-progress in me, to let go of myself. This will take some time, I know, and Keller's book was a well-timed read. I'm beginning to see this self-obsession manifested in a number of ways, not least of which is my writing.

I'm considering abandoning my mundane, daily journal, and significantly altering my approach to this blog. I don't want to write about me anymore. Maybe not for a while, maybe not ever.

Year after year

I did a little math with my free time while I was home in Michigan the last two weeks. This summer marked my tenth in camp ministry. That includes my first two as a Counselor in Training while I was still in high school, and the five I spent as a counselor / core staff at Grace Adventures, the one I was in Tanzania, and the two I've spent here in Puerto Rico as program director. And that's not even counting the summers when I just showed up for a week or so to handle an overflow of campers as a rent-a-staff.

Having thusly proved my credentials, I pretty much have this whole Camp Ministry thing down and should therefore be finished making mistakes.

Yes, well.

I remember a phone call I made to my old director before last summer, in the last few days before staff training. I asked him what I should do if I make a mistake. I don't remember exactly how he worded it, but he basically said that I should just expect to make a bunch of them and move on. While he talked, I was busy realizing how much I had just betrayed my own nerves and fears about being the dude in charge of a summer program.

Now that we've wrapped up our summer camps for 2012, I can proudly say: I made several mistakes and no one ever demanded my immediate firing, and things never came to a screeching halt, and summer turned out pretty great. After all, camp has a way of running itself.

Now that I say that, I realize I probably could have gotten more sleep.

But anyway. One of the reasons camp went well, and that it's able to run itself, is because we had a solid summer staff.

Seriously, though. This was a consistent and constant comment from parents, visitors, mission teams, and other staff:

"Your staff, man... they're pretty awesome. Like, seriously. I didn't expect this."

Okay, that's my paraphrase. But I heard it a bunch of times, and I swelled with pride each time. And I grew increasingly appreciative of the way our counselors showed up and owned camp like they did. Nope, they weren't perfect - like me, they made mistakes, too - but they definitely exceeded expectations. People don't expect a bunch of college kids to be able to handle this, to be this dedicated and this responsible.

But they're the hands and feet of the ministry, and a big part of the big things that God continues to do here. We've got a really solid crew of high-schoolish and college kids who come back year after year and do this camp thing better every time. They volunteer their time a few weekends in the fall, winter, and spring to help us with retreats, too.

When campers come, they expect to see them.

That, to me, is huge. There's a bond of trust, and a sense of community amongst the campers. We're blessed to have a lot of returners and a healthy mix of new faces who quickly settle in like old friends. Because many of them are old friends. The returners know when campers or counselors are missing. They have real relationships, amongst themselves and with the staff. Many of our counselors have been able to invest in the same kids and witness their growth year after year.

It's huge. And I think it's a huge positive for the ministry here at Campamento del Caribe.

So, mad props to our summer staff. Job well done. Keep it up, year after year.



(how about I conclude with an old, semi-relevant Audio Adrenaline song:)

The End is Near

Last week, as we wrapped up our high school camp, I stood in front of a packed house of campers, counselors, dores, and parents. We'd watched our final video, I'd handed out the spray-painted medals with the theme "¡Gánatelo!" scribbled in Sharpie, and made our final announcements. I bid the campers adios and had just started to send them off to the Multipurpose building to wait for their parents when I saw Jerry and Julio coming up. "One more thing," they said.

I knew what it was. I handed off the mic and nonchalantly wandered back toward the projector screen or something to poke around and look busy while they talked. Jerry told them in his Bolivian Spanish, the non-native-speaker type I can mostly understand, that they had one more announcement. He called me over, and put his hand on my shoulder. I remember what he was talking about but I have no idea what he said, because I was in that face-beet-red Oh-crap-Oh-crap-Oh-crap they'retalkingaboutme state.

"Something something we have an announcement something thank you for all your hard work something something Agosto." Then I was looking at all of the faces in the crowd, looks of surprise and inquiry for many, and indifference for some. Here was a room full of people thinking about me and my time here and what I've been doing for the last two years. I looked at him. "Un placer," I said. 

It's been a pleasure. Not much else to say. After all, Yo soy un hombre de pocas palabras. Used that in a joke at closing the week before. Didn't say it this week, but I thought it. In Spanish.

I thanked them. They prayed for me. I got the mic back, told 'em I wasn't gonna make a speech or anything, but I was sure gonna miss everyone when I left at the end of August. I made a few more announcements to the padres as the kids walked out, then dismissed them. In front of our multipurpose building, as the campers filed out, there were lots of bendiciones from parents, from kids, the many I've gotten to know in the almost two years I've spent here.

"It won't be the same without you!" "I'm gonna miss you!" "Are you gonna come back to visit?"

I wasn't sure they were really going to make an announcement or anything. I didn't expect it, I didn't revel in it... I wasn't sure how to handle it. Really, I could only stand there and think about how much I don't like attention, and how awesome I must be to not like attention, and - how does anyone really like being the center of attention anyway? Why would anyone want that?

I've invested myself here for nearly two years, grown accustomed to the culture of the camp and the island. I've met a lot of people. It hasn't always been fun, or easy, but it has always been good, right, appropriate for me to be here. My only regret is not spending more time working on my Spanish.

For goodness sakes, people, if you're gonna live abroad, you gotta learn the language.

Camp is a bubble. It's wonderful for the kids but often difficult for staff. I am eager, excited, nervous to get back to my home, to my family, to Michigan. What a wonderful state it is.

But going home is inevitably going to be hard, and I am most definitely leaving something behind here. So many relationships, friends, memories. The landscape, the community. The Climate.

Oh, man... winter. I haven't seen you since 2009.

Bitterness

Ephesians 4:31 - Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.

Hooray for sports, my favorite diversion.

You could very well have missed it, but yesterday was the NBA Finals, and Lebron James got his ring. I can't, for the life of me, muster any interest in the NBA, especially without a dog in the fight. I tried to watch last night, I really did, but as Miami pulled away in the third quarter I quickly tuned out to watch this. With a shortened season, and the Pistons languishing in an era of, uh, non-competitiveness, I can confidently say I never cared less about the NBA finals.

A week or two ago I found this: OKCLE T-shirts as Thunder hopes to beat the Heat. It seems Cleveland fans partnered with Oklahoma City fans not so much to root for them but to root against Lebron James. Hence the OKCLE shirts, and their short-lived brotherhood.

Last summer, I went with my friend Josh to a game in Cleveland, and I saw that wall where they used to hang an enormous "We are all witnesses" banner with Lebron James and Nike or something. For a season, Lebron was the symbol of Cleveland, and they were happy to define themselves by a professional athlete. And when that was taken away, they were crushed. They felt rejected, empty...

...bitter.

I get that. The fallout is natural.

A lot of us joined in their bitterness, happy to see him fail, making jokes about Lebron and how he couldn't finish a game, how he only had three quarters, no ring, etc.

I think people love bitterness. We get to revel in how we were offended or wronged for as long as we want. It's ours, we own it, and nobody can take it away. We get to sink into this little place where we're victims, where the world wronged us and we can throw our hands up in exasperation. Victims aren't responsible. Some of us like being victims.

For Cleveland, I guess it was, "We're gonna suck now, but it's not our fault." Nevermind that, unless you're an owner, manager, or athlete, nothing in sports is your fault from the cellar to championship glory. We're all spectators - witnesses, I guess - and nothing more. So why be bitter? Why hang onto that?

Because bitterness has a way of owning you. To hang onto bitterness is to refuse to move on, to incarcerate yourself, to give up.

Mass-producing OKCLE shirts means that Cleveland - at least the Cavs fans - continue to be defined by Lebron, long after he's gone. Cavs fans: Why would you let some guy in another city continue to define you? Let it go. Wash your hands of it. Be done with it. He got his ring. May that be closure for you. Your Lebron James era is over. Start rooting for the Cavs, not against Lebron.

Lots of people, myself included, have bitterness. You can continue to define yourself by a girl who dumped you, or a job that let you go. I got laid off once. Sometimes, I check their website secretly hoping to find it vacant. Why would you let a girl you once dated, or a job you once held, continue to define you?

Bitterness is a silent killer. We think it's okay to hang onto, but I think it eats you, it distracts you, and it can define you. In Ephesians 4:31, Paul groups it in with decidedly less private, secretive stuff: Rage. Fighting. Slandering. Maliciousness. They're cousins of bitterness. Jesus says we ought to turn a cheek if someone wrongs you. There are some things we're just supposed to let go of.