Country Swamps

Quaker Lake was always an interesting place to be in the late 70's and early 80's. Camp was a very rustic place, if by rustic you mean old and often broken down! The lake itself, once the center of camp life, had been replaced by a pool and was no longer fit to swim in (Unless, of course, you were fully dressed and going against your will!). Not only that, the algae was so thick that in the heat of summer the lake could actually appear to be RED. There was no air conditioning anywhere; when it rained hard, the hill in front of the lodge turned into a mudslide; and one summer the sewage system backed up and the smell was often overwhelming. Plus, out behind the winter cabins on the way to the boys side of the lake the ground was squishy and nasty. All of this, plus crazed campers, long hours and a lack of caffeine often made the summer staff a bit loopy. From those feelings a song was born. I often get credit for writing it, but the fact is I had nothing to do with it. I just performed it a 100 times later on, so it is associated with me. It was written by a class full of campers led by Martha and Alan, with one of the campers being the legendary Jay Wilkins. Most of the references are self-explanatory, but I will tell you that Climax is the name of the little town where QLC is located (go ahead and snicker),"Red-Eye Dick" was a ghost story about camp we used to tell (before we got them banned!) and that the doors of the old cabins slammed with a volume you just can't imagine! So here are the lyrics to Country Swamps, the only song from the infamous Project Myrtle to ever actually make it to an official camp song sheet! It is sung to the tune of Take Me Home, Country Roads by John Denver (a song that would later become a favorite with groups I took skiing in West Virginia). Everyone sing along!

Almost heaven, Climax suburbs
Blue Ridge swampland
Summer camp at Quaker Lake
The staff is old there
older than the trees
Aged by all those campers no higher
than their knees

CHORUS
Country Swamps, let me go
I’ve had enough as you should know (wo-wo-wo-wo)
Climax suburbs, outside of the Food Rite (or the Bi-Rite)
Country Swamps, let me go

All my memories of all those mudslides
and Red-Eye Dick still lingers in my mind
Going to the bath house
at 3 o’clock in the morn
Stepping on a black snake
wishing I wasn’t born

CHORUS

I hear the bell in the morning
as it rings so loud
Shuttin’ off my alarm clock
saying "let’s go back to bed"
When suddenly I hear the noise
Of little footsteps running all around the floor
And slamming the door...

CHORUS

Influences- DB3

As I began this daily blog a couple of weeks ago, I knew I wanted to tell stories from my career in student ministry. I knew I wanted to inspire readers in their faith. I knew I wanted to share the people and places that had inspired me. I knew I wanted to share the times I had failed. And I knew I wanted you to know the people who had substantial influence on my ministry. My parents were the biggest influence, but I am not ready to tell that story just yet. So today I'll talk about a guy who got to me early and changed me forever.


When I first started attending New Garden Friends youth in 1972, Fred Edinger was the youth leader. I wasn't around Fred very much before he left and was replaced by Beth Phillips, who I knew from her work at Quaker Lake, and David Brown III (pictured above holding video camera, along with me, Steve Semmler, Andy Maynard and an unknown guy), who was unlike anyone I had ever known...or seen! While I loved Beth and her quiet, calm leadership and friendship, David (known to us all as DB3) was a wild, charismatic figure who we were drawn to. He had long red hair, a longer red beard, and often wore a leather "hippie hat" like John Lennon used to wear. DB3 was the epitome of anti-establishment at a time when that was very cool. He was a Christ-centered Quaker who knew scripture and loved the Lord, but was totally radical in his actions and speech. He had gone to court to get conscientious objector status and stay out of Vietnam, and had amazing stories to tell about the courtroom and his alternative service as a CO. He was the first person who ever explained the Quaker peace testimony to me as an extension of the teachings of Jesus instead of just a social and political belief. At a time when far too many Quakers seemed ready to fight with those who didn't agree with their stance on the peace testimony (see the irony?), DB3 was living the life of a true pacifist, at least in the eyes of this young teenager. (Later on I would find a similar example in Frank Massey, who married the aforementioned Beth Phillips!) You could not help but learn simply by being around David Brown III.


But having said all that, what I really remember about DB3 was how much fun we had! He constantly pushed the boundaries of excepted "church" behavior, something that I copied from him my entire career. Whether it was doing strange and unexpected things when the youth led Meeting for Worship on Sunday, or teaching us "Sardines," he never failed to keep things lively! He was constantly telling stories ( you never quite knew if they were true or not) and thinking of new, wild and wacky activities. Among the things I remember best was Kick the Can (in the graveyard!). New Garden is a very old Meeting, and the graveyard has tombstones dating back to the Revolutionary War and the Battle at Guilford Courthouse. And yet, on a regular basis, we would scatter throughout the graveyard and play kick the can, running and screaming and occasionally kicking a tombstone thinking it was the ball! I would later continue that tradition as youth leader. DB3 understood something that has since been expressed in this quote: "Sacred cows make the best hamburgers." He always pushed the limits in our activities and in our thinking, and we loved him for it. Many times in my life since I have used his inspiration to guide me in my decision making as I sought to help students become radical followers of Jesus Christ.


So here's to DB3, a great influence on my life and ministry! He helped forge a random group of people into a group of great friends, and pointed us all towards Jesus. I hope someone can look back at my ministry and say the same, because that is what it's all about!


Because of Jesus,

Project Myrtle- Working on the "Fox Moves"

This post is dedicated to Beth Phllips Massey, Martha Ratedge Farlow, Jay Wilkins, and all of the other QLC staffers who have made music such a huge part of camp through the years.


During my first few summers on staff at Quaker Lake Camp, Martha Ratledge (now Farlow) was a lifeguard and the guitar player and song leader for our nightly worship times with junior and senior high campers. (As an aside, these times were often shown on the camp schedule as Singing and Meditation, abbreviated S & M. This always drew snickers from the staff!) Martha was great. She could sing like an angel, played guitar quite well and got the campers to sing. She only had one problem.  Well...three problems.  And they were named Alan Brown, Carl Semmler and Carl Jones.


We loved Martha.  We had known her for a long time.  And we just couldn't resist torturing her at music time.  If I had known then that when she left I would replace her in that role, I might have been more considerate...but I seriously doubt it, because we had too much fun! We would request songs she didn't like.  We would request songs she didn't know!  We would sing the words to the George Fox Song when she would play Simple Gifts, and then do the opposite when she would play George Fox.  We made up new parts to songs like I Shall Be Released, shouting out "help me, help me!" after the line "standing next to me in this lonely crowd is a man who cries he's not to blame."  Alan would randomly break into singing "they called her Lizzie," which was not actually part of any song, and people would join in.  And the kids would get more into our silly stuff than the actual songs on occasion, which frustrated Martha, a true musician.  We thought we might push her over the edge when we put the lyrics of the George Fox Song to the tune of Night Moves by Bob Seegar and called it Fox Moves.  She REALLY hated that one!


But our masterpiece of torture, and final stroke of genius in our desire to make her crazy, was Project Myrtle.  To understand what this devious plot entailed, I need to take you back, kiddies!  Back before computers, before Power Point, even before copiers.  We used song sheets at camp then, and those song sheets had to be typed on to a duplicate master and then run on a mimeograph machine. It was painstaking work, because any typos were fatal- you just had to start over.  Project Myrtle was simple, yet diabolical.  We would create our own song sheet and then one night substitute it for the real song sheet.  And Project Myrtle would contain songs the likes of which Quaker Lake had never seen before.  Along with Fox Moves and The Animal Song of our own creation, the list included The Ballad of Lizzie Borden (with the added "they called her Lizzie chorus!); Wild Thing; She's Been After Man Ever Since; Row, Row, Row Your Boat (in the key of C, naturally); and the never performed but often discussed The Parakeet Song (Google it and you will see shy we could never perform it at QLC!). This would be our finest hour! As we secretly typed the masters, we stored them in an empty refrigerator in a winter cabin that was not used during summer camp at that time.  After hours of typing and a month of so of sneaking around and clandestine activity, we were almost ready to reveal Project Myrtle to the world- and then it was gone. We still don't know what happened. We went to retrieve it from our secret frig, and it simply was not there. We were devastated, Project Myrtle was abandoned, and music time at camp was safe...for a while.


Most people never knew of Project Myrtle, and yet in its own way it did go on to change music at camp. In later years, wild and crazy songs like Barbara Ann and Lahina would cause the Fireplace Room to rock out on hot summer evenings, and that was the legacy of Project Myrtle.  Or not... In any case, it's now some 30 years later, and I am a little bit sorry for all the trouble we caused Martha.  But I am even more sorry Project Myrtle died before we ever had a chance to sing The Parakeet Song for everyone.  And every now and then, when no one is around, I pick up my guitar and start singing "working on the Fox moves..."


Because of Jesus,

Pops

There are some moments that are frozen in time. You can close your eyes and picture a moment 30 years ago as clearly as if it happened yesterday. For me, one of those moments took place at Quaker Lake after a closing campfire. Everyone was saying their goodbyes on the softball field, when I noticed a lone camper, standing out by the pitcher's mound, crying. I walked over to her and asked her what was wrong, only to discover she had just been dumped by her camp boyfriend of the week. I knew her name was Laura Wheeler, but I didn't really know her very well. That frozen moment, however, was the beginning of one of the great friendships of my life.

We talked a long time that night, and in the months that followed wrote on occasion. By the following summer I couldn't wait until she came to camp. She and her cabin mates- Kristen Haworth, Jane Terrell, Jane Tesh, Debbie Tully, Angie Swaim, Mollie (Zowie! It's Mowwie!) Edwards and later, Sharron Tutterow, became "my girls." Kristen and Laura started calling me Pops ( I was all of 21!) and it stuck. That whole group eventually called me Pops, and we not only hung out at camp, but got together for dinner in the off-season and even had a Christmas party together. For the first time (but not the last) I became too attached to youth I worked with. When Debbie had surgery, I was there. When Laura became anorexic, her parents called me and and I spent time with her at the hospital. I watched her suffer, struggle and recover, and we became incredibly close. These were not students in my youth ministry, they were "one week a year" kids. We shared great times and great sorrows, and I learned what it means to really be in ministry with a group of kids. It takes everything, just like Jesus said it would. I was no hero and I made plenty of missteps along the way, but I gave them everything I had, and they did the same. They gave me a Pops sweatshirt that I loved dearly. When it looked like we would not have any more time at QLC together, I wrote a song for them. We actually had a another year together, but the song remained meaningful for them and lots of other campers. I called it Leaving...But Not Really:

We’ve all come so far so fast,
becoming such close friends
And now that our time together has passed
Is this where it all has to end
Friends we go on living
So friends let’s go on loving
We may all think our time’s at end
But this is where we begin
To be friends

We’ll soon be many miles apart
With other people we need
But just because we’ll be apart
Let’s don’t give up what we’ve received
You don’t love friends with your eyes
It’s really your heart that cries
Love is friendship caught on fire
And love is what we require
From our friends

Friends, I will remember you
Think of you, pray for you
And when another day is through
I’ll still be friends with you.

And while I haven't seen them in many years, they are often on my mind and in my prayers. I hope that they have beautiful families and people in their lives who can love them the way they loved me. Quaker Lake was never about the camp. It was always about the people. And for this "Pops," those people were some of the best.

And by the way...Debbie used the lyrics to the above song as a high school creative writing project a couple of years later. We got an "A!"

Missing Silence

Over the years I have worked in a wide variety of churches, and I admit that I am a bundle of contradictions when it comes to worship. I love traditional Quaker worship (about as traditional as it gets!) and I love emergant worship aimed at those who can't deal with traditional. You see, I want it all! Anyone who knows me understands how important music is to me, and I love all types of worship music. I can understand what the psalmist meant when he wrote "make a joyful noise to the Lord" because to me they are all joyful noises! I love classic hymns like It Is Well With My Soul, Come Thou Fount, Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee and Amazing Grace. I love the gospel bluegrass style of When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder and I Saw the Light. I love great modern songs like Awesome God, Shout To the Lord, Thy Word and Where Justice Rolls Down. And I love to rock out with the newest praise and worship stuff from people like Chris Tomlin, David Crowder and Starfield. The opening chords to No One Like You from Crowder lights a fine in my soul. I loved leading music in church, at youth groups and at Quaker Lake. Music moves me and is an important part of my worship experience. Music helps provide the passion in worship.

I also love a good sermon. To be taught new insights into scripture, to be inspired, to be moved by the spoken word is an important part of the worship experience. Listening to Matthew Hartsfield on a Sunday morning or Tony Campolo anytime can really rattle my cage. I also love when pastors choose to communicate in different ways- through drama, video and other creative forms. I love leaving a service feeling inspired and challenged in my walk with Christ.

Marilyn, Will and I currently attend a church where they do the above things exceptionally well. Van Dyke Church has a variety of great music and pastors who deliver solid messages with style and creativity. But once again this morning I discovered the one thing they don't do well, the one thing very few churches do well anymore. They are missing silence.

Growing up at New Garden Friends Meeting (and continuing later at Springfield) we learned how to "do" silence. Each week there was a 15-25 minute period of "open worship" or "Communion after the manner of Friends" during which there was silence. It followed the message, and people would often stand and speak to what God was laying on their hearts about the sermon. But even if no one spoke, it was a much needed time of "being still" before God and listening for the still, small voice. This practice continued through my days at Quaker Lake, where on the Vespers Hill and at the Campfire Circle we would center our thoughts in periods of silence, meditation and prayer. We believed what George Fox, the original Quaker, had said in the 1650's- "There is one, even Christ Jesus, who can speak to my condition." So we listened for Him. Many of the great spiritual moments of my life took place in those periods of total silence.

Now, the silence has been replaced by background noise. This morning we had a time of silent meditation at Van Dyke, but the piano played the entire time. This is the norm at most churches that have "silence." One time at FUMC-Kissimmee, I had preached the Ash Wednesday service, and wanted a period of silent meditation to accompany the implementation of the ashes.  Our Associate Pastor, Rodney, emphasized that while he knew people were not really comfortable with silence, this would be total silence for a few moments. He finished by saying "so as the organ plays, settle into this time of silent meditation." Too funny.

Silence scares people in the church. It is too intimate. What if God is actually trying to speak to me? Do I really want to hear Him? When we open ourselves to the silence and actually listen for God's voice, we join the ranks of the many biblical heroes who listened- and seldom heard what they wanted to hear! So I have to find my times of quiet and solitude with God outside of Church these days. That is not all bad. But still, I feel sorry for those who don't know how amazing silence can be. And I wonder if God is being heard like He should be in our world today.

So give me a Tony Campolo sermon, a Chris Tomlin worship set and a slick video to challenge my mind and my spirit. But please, leave me some to "be still and know that He is God." I do miss the silence...

Because of Jesus,

Top 10, Vol. 1- Quaker Lake Moments

In my 6 years as a full-time member of the Quaker Lake staff (1978-83) there were hundreds of moments that made me laugh. Here are ten of the most memorable (all names are maiden names, even the guys!):

10) There was no air conditioning at QLC, so floor fans and widow fans were very important, especially when you were trying to sleep. The girls' staff cabin, where the cooks and female lifeguards lived, was no exception. One particular nights we came into possession of a 50 pound bag of dried mashed potato flakes that some mice had gotten into, so they could not be used. We waited until the middle of the night, slid a window fan to the side, and started throwing flakes through the window! As they went in, the multitude of fans began to blow the flakes all over the cabin. They woke up the next morning buried under 50 pounds of potato flakes! Snow in July!

9) David Fields, as a 4th grade camper, singing Home On the Range. "Oh give me a................HOME!" Also his famous line at dinner: "This is not Del Monte corn. I taste Del Monte corn when I taste it!"

8) My cabin of guys snuck over to the girls cabins in the early morning hours to lock in the campers of Beth Grantham's cabin. Our usual plan consisted of locking them in and singing to them, thus waking them up and causing some of them to need to use the rest room, which was located OUTSIDE their cabin! As they woke up and began screaming at us, Beth said to one of my guys "You just wait until I tell Carl Jones you are out of your cabin!" I laughed and responded "Good morning, Beth!" She forgave me about a week later...

7) On Saturday mornings one particular summer Ronnie Osborne and a very young Doug Thomas would ride around in the classic old QLC truck and empty the garbage cans dressed as Trashman and Garbage Boy! It was such a hoot to watch the parents arriving to pick up their kids try to figure our what was going on...

6) Before we knew sun tanning was bad, people used to wear oil (SPF Negative 50!) to actually attract the sun. Susan McBane was using such an oil- until Carl Semmler (the king of pranks!) substituted bacon grease from breakfast in her oil bottle. It looked the same, and she rubbed it all over her, but after a few minutes the smell started to get to her. Her response: "Oh wow, I think this oil is cankered!" A classic moment.

5) A few us were walking by the guys outhouse one afternoon when we heard the familiar voice of Lindley Osborne singing The All Day Song while sitting on the toilet. Just as we passed the door we heard "and in the in between time when you feel the pressure coming..." And we lost it! We also once lost Lindley for hours when he took a nap on a third level bunk in the back of the lodge and didn't tell anyone. We searched everywhere...

4) Head Cook Denise May and her assistant spent hours hand writing a huge chart for the kitchen with a measurement list- things like 4 Quarts=1 Gallon. Hours after they posted it, two unnamed culprits came along and wrote on the bottom 2 Cooks=1 Disaster! Denise is still mad. (Bonus: Name the 2 culprits!)

3) Alan Brown and I had written a silly song about animals dying and we premiered it at camp. We dedicated it to fellow staffer Martha Ratledge, and then finished the song with this chorus:

Isn't it a sad day, when all the animals die

There ain't nothing to do

Isn't it a sad day, when all the animals die

Why can't you die too?

It was so off the wall and so unexpected, everyone just burst into laughter. A great moment! And as always (and quite often!) Martha forgave us.

2) One Senior High Camp we were divided into groups that would be our teams for Team Competition and our family groups for discussion. I was responsible for dividing the campers, so I gave myself and my co-leader Sabrina (Sis) Perry, my good friend who was volunteering that week, a great group but what we thought would be a lousy team. Jay Osborne, Marshall Ratledge, Kim Haynes, Laura Wheeler, Angie Swaim and the rest were a blast to be around, and since we expected to lose anyway, we stole the Bill Murray cheer from Meatballs and before every event would chant "It just doesn't matter!" Long story short, we were undefeated in Team Competition!!! And the rest of the staff hated me...but I still have a picture of that group in my room. So worth it...

1) I had a cabin of guys for a number of years who not only came to camp together but went to school together as well. They would spend the "off-season" planning for camp, and one year they came armed with elaborate paper shooters. They would fold bits of paper and fire them at each other, leaving marks whenever they hit. One night, it was late and we had been loud, and when Neal came by for cabin check he had told us no more noise. So as David Fields, David Hockett, Robert Osborne and the rest lay in their beds, all was quiet. Until I heard this-Zing!....POP....Owwww!!!!!!!! There would be snickers, more quiet, and then a repeat. Over and over again, until, to keep from laughing, I yelled at them "enough!" Quiet set in for a minute, and then I heard a loud thump, followed by the all-time classic line "Carl- David just hit me with his saxophone!" I lost it laughing! I loved those guys...

So there you have it. If you read these, I hope you get a feel for how special those years were to me. If you read this and were there for any of this, please add your memories in a comment.

Until tomorrow...

The Arkansas Guarantee

When you work at Quaker Lake Camp, different areas of the campus come to mean different things to you. For instance, the pool was the pulse of the camp, the place where you get a feel for the excitement level. The lodge was the nerve center (and the stomach!) where you find out what is going on. The Vespers Hill and the Campfire Circle were definitely the soul and spirit, the places where we took time to notice God's presence. The softball field was where the action was, and where many a camp ended in hugs and tears. (In a side note, the softball field, as every Quaker Laker knows, is where you go if anything at camp catches on fire. This led to the weekly question, no matter the age of the campers, that drove Neal crazy- "Where do we go if the softball field is on fire?" You know, I still don't know...) But for me, in my years at QLC, the heart of the place was the Craft Hut. Every day, no matter the weather, no matter the age group, class after class of campers came to the crafts hut to make ceramics (beautiful and hideous!) and various other crafts. And day after day you could find me at the same place- the Leather Tables. The Leather Tables were a few old picnic tables just outside the Craft Hut. There we would sit and help campers use stamps to pound their names and designs into leather bracelets, key chains, sun visors and more. We would stain them in different shades of brown, green, blue and our favorite, antique oxblood! We would polish them with Carnuba (sp?) Cream, which we were delighted to discover contained whale sperm as one of its ingredients! And we would put them together, pounding cheap little rivets together with a wooden hammer, or, once you became a master (lol), with THE hammer. Most days at the Leather Tables were relaxed and lazy. We talked about life, told jokes, and listened to the great music coming from the stereo in the Craft Hut. We would put off actually assembling the leather pieces until the end of each week. And at the end of the class we would offer the campers The Arkansas Guarantee. (Why Arkansas? Just seemed like a place where a lot of things would break...) To the best of my memory, the guarantee was first offered by Alan Brown and Bill Terrell when I was still a volunteer. But it was after I started working with Alan at the tables in 1978 that it became a regular event. The Arkansas Guarantee was a sure thing in an unsure world. It simply stated that "in the event that your Quaker Lake leather work falls apart or otherwise breaks, you get to keep all the pieces!" It was a helpful promise, because almost every item ever assembled at the Leather Tables did indeed break. Knowing that this was going to happen, and that it was still OK, was somehow very comforting to the campers and staff who had toiled on these leather goods.

My life has not been much different than those leather wrist bands I used to hammer together. I know I am going to break things, because I always do. I know even the simple things can get complicated. But fortunately, life comes with its own Arkansas Guarantee. His name is Jesus. When life falls apart, when things break down, we can turn to Him, and he helps us keep all the pieces...and even better, put them back together! In Matthew 11:28 Jesus says "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." I know Jesus was a carpenter by trade, but somehow I can see him hanging out at the Leather Tables, under the shade tree, offering the guarantee to any camper who needed it. And we all need it.

So next time you feel "broken," go to the One who was broken for you. There you will find rest for your weary soul...there you will be made whole. But if you find the softball field on fire, I guess you are on your own...

Because of Jesus,