July 21 2025

We changed tables again this morning. After this change, mealtimes typically become more suitable for a civilized meal. I particularly look forward to this day every week because, for one brief moment, I can hear what others at the dinner table are saying. My hearing is just one of my frailties that the campers are well aware of (ever since I fell walking to candy shoppe last summer, tearing my rotator cuff and leading to a visit to the orthopedic surgeon) the girls have noted all those little things that we old guys typically don’t mention. So of course they saw my sporty new hearing aids (Margaret put her foot down on that one after camp last year… she didn’t accept my suggestion that she was mumbling all the time, rightfully diagnosing the obvious condition and forcing an expensive visit to the audiologist). We purchased these very “cool” (audiologist’s words) gold-colored hearing aids, which I was told were inconspicuous until the first day of camp. These campers notice everything and are not afraid to ask, so I embrace all the humiliations of aging. You’ll get there too one day… if not this, it will be something else, so might as well not fight it! But I digress… the Dining Hall did not have a quiet breakfast this time. Breakfast was as deafening as ever. It’s a good sign.

The Dining Hall volume is a barometer of how camp feels. Mary Gray’s secret sorting process for assigning tables results in mostly mixed-up (new friend) tables. Many tables had campers who were not known by everyone else at the table. Typically, such a situation would cause the girls to quiet down as they tentatively found their voice in a new setting with new people. Today, they didn’t waste a minute… everyone got straight to learning names, hometowns, answering the dog/cat questions, cabin numbers, birth dates, house numbers, cities, states, school names, and so forth. The more they talked, the louder they got. The code was cracked quickly (first names), and we jumped right into raucous banter. The campers confidently engage in lively conversations with ANYONE at camp. Such are the “soft-skills” that camp teaches… skills that will prove to be as crucial as anything learned at school.

This confidence is combined with a shared appreciation for the little things that define a camp day, little things like the sound of rain on a tin roof during rest hour, the view of mist rising from the mountains when the rain ends, the aroma of bread baking in the morning, and wet mulch in the afternoon. Little things about camp are now precious, not because of the thing itself but because of the people who have shared the experience of seeing/smelling/appreciating the same things. It enables every conversation to quickly find common points of deeply felt connection. Our shared appreciation partially explains the friendships that form when we wear a Greystone shirt or pull out a Greystone waterbottle while traveling. The gear elicits a quick question: “Did you go to Greystone?” and leads to a rapid-fire conversation that is not that different from what happens in the dining hall when we change tables. The swag leads to new friendships in new places, joy and light shared, and God being glorified once again.

Today’s Breakfast Club continued the consideration of spiritual growth and the fact that prayer is an essential part of developing a relationship with God. Too often we consider prayer a tool for getting God to do something for us. We ask for things all the time, but how often do we just talk to Him as we would a friend? When we see something funny and share that moment with Him, with a quick “that was funny” acknowledgement. When the sun warms our face on a cool morning, a quick “what a great day” prayer of thanksgiving, when we just feel blue and don’t know why, a quick (or long) “I don’t know why I feel this way, but I am sad” prayer. Such prayers are honest. They treat God as a person, and that is precisely what He is… a loving father who just happens to be the Sovereign, all-powerful, all-knowing, creator of all things. At camp, we develop skills in forming lasting friendships. Why not use those same skills to build a lasting friendship with God?