"Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me!" Psalm 51:10
"So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in th epotter's hand and he reworked it into another vessle, as it seemed good to the potter to do..." -Jeremiah 18:3-4
"then let men kill, which cannot share
Let blood and flesh be mud mire
Scheming imagined, passion willed
Freedom a drug that's bought and sold
Giving to steal and cruel kind
A heart to fear, to doubt a mind
To differ a disease of same
Conform the pinnacle of am."
-E.E. Cummings, my father moved through dooms of love
"But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, 'Why have you made me like this?'" - Romans 9:20
The Hollow Men
I was the darkness swallowed up the sun
I was the plague on Egypt's plain
I was the ice in God's hand
I was the stone that rolled from
I am the Hollow in the stone
You look at my face
My nose - aristocratic, called
My mouth - laughter, heard
My beauty - revealed
My eyes - what heart?
I felt above the pounding of
Rain or hammers or hailstone
Like bones, and I felt simplicity
Drain my ears
Hmmm.
Crack.
I heard above the sound
Of rushing waters
Of crickets in the early morning
Of bells from one thousand churches
Of the Angel of Death
Passing over
Thump. Ump. Thump. Umpthump.
I felt within and above and beyond
A sound that could only mean
One thing:
That thing that makes men's minds
Turn to oatmeal
And makes men's hearts
Turn from stone to sand
So, here is the short version of my camp experience at ICC Speech Leadership Camp. I have this really good insightful post coming, but I thought I'd write a short on camp. Sixteen fun things about Camp: Zero bug bites before the last day. I had this AMAZING bug spray that kept everything away and smelled like a smoothie. I was soooo happy... then I went on a hay ride. Apparently, in Tennessee (where "there's oxygen, so there are bugs.") there are these things called chiggers which are the demonic cousins of mites. They leave their feeding tubes in your skin, so they itch for forever and swell up and scar. I don't itch anymore, but I'm scarred. That was a unique experience. One week in Tennessee. One of the most amazing weeks of my life. Two amazing Moons. I met Mr. Moon for the first time at the conference - wonderful people, those Moons. I also got to see Mrs. Moon. I really like her and am very glad that she's still so involved in our organization. Three hours discussing philosophy with Rebecca. Rebecca was one of the girls in my cabin and we got to be friends during our week at Camp, as we were both also Student Leaders. Rebecca is a genius analyzer and then some. So, one day, we sat in the (air-conditioned) chapel and talked about philosophy for three hours (blog post on that coming soon). She's the only person I know who talks classic literature, philosophy, and knows everything old musical ever. Four speech events. Not bad for my second tournament ever, eh? I competed Impromptu, Interpretation, Platform, and Sales Pitch. Five third-place awards. Seriously. Five third places. How did I manage that? I took 3rd in Impromptu, Interpretation, Sales Pitch, Sweepstakes (not sure how that happened) and Model UN speaker. Six people playing Big Monkey. Phil (very cool intern who used to scare me but gave me a 1st place ballot in Interp) taught six of us how to play this really random, pointless game called Big Monkey... I am sad to say that four out of the six people didn't get this nearly rule-free game. Oh well. Seven guys singing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" - at Eric's request. Eric (another cool intern, though he didn't scare me) likes to sing. Lots. Even though his voice is, in a word, bad. Once he found out my talent for getting a song stuck in my head for weeks at a time, he made it his goal to sing every song he knows around me. Rick Astley was his favorite (and Phantom of the Opera - talk about awkward.) but The Lion Sleeps Tonight was rather amusing - considering the fact that he gathered most of the guys in the room to sing the backup for him. Eight hours with the same people daily. Since there were only four Student Leaders (I was the odd one out in a lot of ways... vaguely humorous.) we spent all of our four-six classes a day with each other and since there were so few, we got to know each other well. When we did personality typing (we actually had a class on it) we found out that we're all within a few letters of each other. Nine girls in my cabin. Six of us were there for the ride, three were interns. I loved doing devotionals every night with them. Ten showers in the Girl's Bathouse. And everyone in them sang. It was fantastic. Eleven -Minute D.I. (ouch.) Twelve wonderful interns. Hhhhh... I miss them. Thirteen or more states represented. Even a foreign country - Ontario, Canada. His accent was funny. Fourteen pages of notes. I'm a little overeager. Fifteen Model UN Nations. Yipee! Go Model UN! If they'd passed my resolution, we would have won the game... but they didn't. So much fun. A myriad: Of memories, knowledge and friendships.
Coming up next: An insightful post on Hollow Men...
One hen
Two ducks
Three squawking geese
Four limerick oysters
Five corpulent porpoises
Six pairs of Don Alverso's tweezers
Seven thousand Macedonians in full battle array
Eight brass monkeys from the ancient sacred crypse of Egypt
Nine apathetic sympathetic diabetic old men on roller skates with a marked propensity toward procrastination and sloth
Ten lyrical spherical diabolical denizans of the deep who haul stall around the corner of the quo of the quay of the quivery
All at the same time.
(Why? Because I don't have time to write a full post about the amazingness of ICC Camp.
Why that poem? Well, you'll have to stay tuned to read all about it.
Why wait? Because it's too phenomenal to write in short form.
Why so phenomenal? Great people, like the people I love and miss so much I'm referring to them as my Camp Family and who include interns and teens, fantastic memories, like things about cows, flight attendants, and Rick Astley, and lots of fun. Like I said, stay tuned.
-Catey
Who misses her Camp Family)
