7 Chapter 7: A Conversation with Truman Nabors
Conversation with Truman Nabors
Director of Operations, Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu, NM
Director for 26 years of Camp Glenkirk, VA
September 14, 2003
Camp Glenkirk started in the summer of 1960, and in the summer of 1961, I went to the camp for a week to do a counseling program. My wife and I were counselors for a 7th grade resident camp. After that, I became chairman of the camp committee for a number of years in the sixties, and then I went there in 1969 to be the director of Camp Glenkirk. I was on the staff of the Presbytery. When it started out it was Potomac Presbytery, and then the union of the church came about— First National Capital Union Presbytery and then the National Capital Presbytery—so I was on the staff of the Presbytery through several transition times. And I was sometimes known as our camp director and sometimes as Associate for Outdoor Ministry, so it varied through the 26 years that I was directing Glenkirk.
As director, I was responsible for programs, while as chairman of the camp committee I was responsible for policies around the camp. One of the big issues during the time I was there was the question of whether or not the camp should be taxed with property tax. So that was a big issue, and then the City of Manassas decided to build a water reservoir adjoining the camp, using the stream that went through the camp, and so then we had a lake adjoining the camp. It took a part of camp property, and we ended up with about a mile and a half of frontage on Lake Manassas, which later became quite popular for Robert Trent Jones, the golf man, who built a golf course on the other side of the lake where the President’s Cup is now played.
As for camp programs, the camp started off with a whole thing around decentralized camping. But when I went there it was not as decentralized as it became during my time there. There were a number of villages, as we called them, but primarily they were near the main lodge, and they were not totally independent from the main part of the camp. They would go out and maybe have a meal in the out of doors, their home in the woods or the village, but then there were a lot of group activities. Some nights there would be a big scavenger hunt, other nights there was square dancing, a folk dancing kind of a thing. And all the other meals were eaten in the dining hall, when afterwards there’d be group singing, and things of that sort. But when I went there, with the work of Wayne Jones, who was my co-director and who had a lot of experience in decentralized camping, we became much more decentralized and the villages were moved farther away from the lodge and acted independently. We would have up to nine villages and they’d be villages of all ages so that you might have 3rd graders in a village, or 4th and 5th graders, or 7th graders or 8th and 9th graders. In each village there would be 10-12, maybe up to 14, campers. Although when I arrived there was generally 14, and we felt like the dynamics of a group of 14 were too many so we went no more than 12 campers with 2 counselors. The younger groups, the 3rd and 4th graders, we’d only have 10 campers per group.
Much of our philosophy of small group camping came from L.B. Sharp. Wayne Jones, my co-director, had met L.B. Sharp, and L.B. Sharp was in many ways the father of outdoor education. And he was in New York City, and he took the public schools, as I understand it, to the out of doors to do what they could best do in the out of doors. And we carried forth that philosophy, trying to do what we could best do in the out of doors. And that got me into a whole kind of thing around church philosophy from a standpoint that my belief was that what we could do best in the out of doors was to experience living in Christian community, and that we could provide experiences on the awe and wonder of the out of doors. And so, we really put our major emphasis on those areas. One of my other feelings was that when I went there, we always had an hour of Bible study, which I’m not against Bible study, but I didn’t feel that could best be done in the out of doors. It could best be done in a church school, so let the church school do Bible study, and we’d provide experiences that would get inside of the campers and provide real life experiences.
Why did you get involved in this camp work?
I had gotten to know Wayne Jones, who was in charge of leadership development for the Presbytery, and I had worked with A.T. Brown who was director of the camp for a number of years. And I had been a pastor of a local church, and it was something almost synergistic that sort of drew me there, and I followed the energy of that, feeling that there was a peace there that I could identify with, and which I saw the validity of too, and which brought about a general feeling of— a left-open-ness because it’s real. And one of the greatest satisfactions I’ve ever had was being able to enable young people, children, to have experiences that got inside of them and became a part of who they were. So that was much more of a comfort zone for me I guess from a standpoint that it was the church in action in living ways.
From a standpoint of working with our staff, I’d spend anywhere from a week to 10 days with our staff doing staff training. And we did everything and lived out everything the campers did, so that it was all built around experiential kinds of education. And in the villages, the agenda was to take what happened and to build on it, to understand what living in a Christian community is all about. Typically, the day would start out with a half hour of quiet time. That was something we instituted early. We had morning-time sheets that we used over and over again, and they were geared towards what might be happening in the life of the group. There was a song that we used that we would sing generally after we went out and had our time, which was really geared towards living with the concept “they find us worthy, His gifts to hold.”
But the morning-time sheets were also geared towards those kind of qualities that would be necessary for living out in Christian community. Being dependable was one of them. I remember one of the morning-time sheets was about dependability. What would happen if the sun didn’t come up the next morning? What would happen if the cooks didn’t show up? And what would happen with us if we were not doing what others were dependent on? So, that was just one of the little qualities that got to be a part of the group life development. There were going to be conflicts, and they’d generally come up on the third day. So, we’d deal with things in the morning-time sheets that focused on living as a part of the Body and with our differences. Anyway, those morning times set a tone for the week, and we had about 10-12 of those morning-time sheets and the counselors would choose the ones that seemed to be most appropriate for the life of their group where it was at that time. So, the campers each took a sheet, and they’d take that for a half hour and reflect on that. They’d go out and find their favorite spot. And for a lot of people that was difficult. But one of the great satisfactions was by the time campers went through our program, over the years one of the things that would come back to us as feedback was, “I learned to be quiet, and to be still, and to be reflective, and to be in a state of meditation.” And so it was something that I think became a part of the life of many, many families, that they learned something about quietness and about taking in the awe and wonder. The thing we used was, “Getting in touch with ourselves, getting in touch with others, getting in touch with God, getting in touch with the world around us.” So, the theme was getting in touch.
On the first day of camp they would come and they would get a meal from the dining hall and take it out to their campsite, and then they would eat and bring their dishes back to the dining hall to be washed. And then they would start preparing for the evening. We would ask them to go out and find some sticks that would be their favorite sticks to bring to the campfire. They would find the sticks, then maybe do some activities, and make plans for cooking out for a dinner meal, and they would cook out and wash their dishes at the campsite before the Monday night campfire where all the groups came together for a campfire, which I would lead.
I’d do the Genesis story at the campfire. Let’s see if I can describe that. They’d bring their sticks, and all the villages would meet out near the dining hall, near the campfire area. And I would introduce each of the villages, and we’d welcome them. And then, we would go to the campfire in silence, and I’d beat my drum and lead them down to the campfire area. And I would have a campfire that was laid out and I would start the campfire and often talk about things like, “Something starting out small and just a bit of a flame, and watch it grow into something that was bigger, something that brought life to those around us.” I talked about the way of our life together starting out small and how it could grow and expand and bring light to all of us and warmth and so forth. And I’d talk about how our campfire could be something very positive and bring wonderful benefits, or if it was not something that was used wisely, it could be destructive. So we would expand on what a campfire might be. Plus, campfires have been happening out there for a long time, and the ashes have never been removed, so there’s a very large mound that has developed over the years. And we talked about how life had gone on there for all these years, how here we are on our campfire and our ashes from our campfire would become a part of this and a part of the whole heritage . And how important it was that our week be a thing that was positive, about the heritage that we were leaving.
But, getting back to the whole thing about the Genesis story… I’d have my drum there, and I would talk in terms of how on the first day there was all darkness across all of the vastness, and how God had said, “Let there be light,” and we would look at it and say how wonderful it was, and then God would say, “That’s good.” And we’d beat on the drum, and all the campers would beat on their sticks. And then we’d talk about how there was water everywhere, and God said, “Let there be a firmament,” which is like a land, and God looked at it and said, “That’s good.” And we’d beat on our sticks and drums. And we’d go on through the seven days, but we’d get to the point where there’s the whole thing about the waters, and we’d say, “God looked at the waters and said, ‘Let there be’ this part of life…” And we’d start thinking of what kinds of things God created. And we’d look at the fishes and the whales, the dolphins, and I’d say something and the campers would add to it, and we’d keep on going. They’d be yelling out different animals, and we’d beat on the drums, and God said, “That’s good.” Then we’d get to the earth and how all the animals started being created, and all the campers would start yelling out the different animals from elephants to lions and what have you, just on and on it would go. And we’d look at it, beat on our drum and our sticks, and God said, “That’s good.” So it became sort of a vivid kind of a thing of looking at the creation story, and looking at it in light of that then God created man, and God said, “That’s good.” And here we are, and God says we’re good, and we’d beat on our drums and our sticks, and it was a very lively kind of a thing. And I felt real good about it.
What else would you do at the opening campfire?
Oh well, we’d do lots of things. Sometimes I’d take two sticks and pretend that they were campers. I’d go into sort of a thing of how they were relating to each other, and I could take the sticks and sort of do combative kind of things, and there’d be conflict, or I could take the sticks and hold hands with them, or hug each other, and talk about how we were going to relate to each other here at camp. What was going to be our mode? We had choices about that. And then we’d sing songs. One of my favorites always was “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands,” particularly when you’ve got third graders and fourth graders there, and they’re a little bit fearful of being out in the out of doors. How we don’t have to worry, God’s in control, and here we are and he’s got all of us in his hands, he’s got Camp Glenkirk in his hands. Sometimes I’d even go so far to start doing “She’s Got the Whole World in Her Hands,” just to keep it gender open. But, in fact, that’s one of my favorite things— just my part of the Glenkirk story— but the one thing I want at my funeral is “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.” All of this world is here by God, and God is ultimately the person who rules us and upholds us. Anyway, it’s a very comforting thing in the song.
In general, we didn’t sing popular songs. There’s a whole heritage of camp songs that needs to be preserved. And we would sing those: “Old Texas”… just a whole lot of them, all the old camp songs that grew up around the campfire, that had been passed along for many, many years. That was a general theme that we had from a standpoint of passing along things that had been a part of our heritage. One of the things we often did within our groups, going to bed at night, was to use the Grandfather Tales that were put down by Richard Chase that were stories that had been passed along around campfires for generations. Most of them came out of Europe and were old, old folk stories, jack tales, that were compiled by Richard Chase and came out of the Appalachian kind of a heritage— it was very important to try to preserve that. When I first went there in the early sixties, it was a time of the hippie movement, and there were a lot of new folk songs. And we started out singing a lot of those at that time, and it just didn’t ring as true from what we could do as a camping community to go back and try to recapture the things that had been so much a part of our heritage.
After the campfire they would all go back to their villages and, depending on their age, the younger ones would almost be ready for bed by the time the campfire was over, but the older ones would stay for a bit longer. But we always tried to read stories for the campers going to sleep at night, and it might be jack tales, grandfather tales, it might be Dr. Seuss. We used a lot of Dr. Seuss stories. It was just a time of being quiet, and making campers feel at home where they were.
On day two, they would cook their own breakfast after quiet time. The group then would have decisions to make because there were a lot of options out there of what they could do to fill their day. And when you get into group decision making then you get into an agenda for Christian living because, “I want to go swimming”…“Well, I want to go to crafts.”… “Let’s go canoeing.”… “Let’s get up early in the morning and go out and see the beavers.”… “What are we going to have for lunch?”… “We gotta decide what kind of a cookout we want to have, what meals will we want to prepare.” So it became an open-ended kind of a thing with many options out there about how to go about filling your day. And the structure of the day was determined by the campers and the counselors. And we had a master schedule for things like crafts and swimming, and canoeing, and if they wanted to do one of those they would have to go and we had a chart in a central location where they would go and sign up for what they wanted to do that day.
The schedule of the following days was similar. There was always one meal that was provided for them during the day, and the other meals of the day were prepared at their campsite, and the dishes were washed at their campsite. They had to cut wood, they had to go out and get the wood, and learn how to build a campfire for cooking over the open fire. Within our campsite we had a chuck box that had all the cooking equipment that was needed, and we had a library there with various books and a lot of different things that they could read on their own. And always after lunch we had a rest period. Everyone took a rest period, including the director for an hour. And you know, as you start living out that kind of a time together with all of these activities that tended to build life together— you’ve got to go out and learn how to use a bow saw to cut your wood, all these different skills. In canoeing you had to go to instruction and learn the bow stroke, and the j-stroke, and if they went to the swimming pool and needed to learn something about swimming, there would be lifeguards there that could help them. We didn’t do formal lifeguard training or formal teaching, but the counselors and the lifeguards would get in the pool with them and there was never this embarrassment about that they had to learn how to swim (all of them had to take a swim test before they could go in the deep end). But as they went making all these decisions about their life, all the personalities of the campers would come into play, and that became the agenda then: of working it through as to how we were going to be living out the Christian life in community. That became the agenda.
I would meet each week with each group, once during the week as a ‘talk it over time’ with the director. And it was a way of reinforcing some of the issues that might be going on. And also just to answer questions that kids may have. You know, you can try to force issues onto a person or you can try to create an atmosphere that elicits questions from the campers. And the kind of approach that we were taking was an informal one, which I think opened campers up for greater questions. And so, when I met with them, often I got into real interesting conversations. But around the campfire at night, you’re just sitting and thinking and talking, and where you have developed a sense of trust among them, then people start questioning and wondering and sharing. And I think those are the most meaningful kinds of things as opposed to didactic kinds of teaching. We didn’t do didactic; we were more inductive, I guess is the right word, and then tried to build on that. More of a Socratic kind of thing, as opposed to saying, “This is what you ought to believe, etc., let’s open up and let’s look at stuff.” That seems to me much more grounding and has much more life influence, and it’s more likely to stick and be relevant.
But I would sit down and let them know how glad I am that they’re there and that I hope this is a very special week for them. And I would ask, “What kinds of things would you like to share with me?” We had a place that was a wonderful little area with a tarp over it, and we called it the “conversation pit.” It had a swing, a two-person wooden swing, and groups would go down there—and one of the favorite activities was to freeze homemade ice cream—so they would go down and sit around the campfire and freeze the ice cream, and some would be sitting in the swing. So sometimes we would meet down at the conversation pit. It had a place with benches around it that people could sit on. We tried to create places that were conducive to conversation. We had a number of areas that had benches that were sort of circular and created kind of a structure for those kinds of things to happen.
What other things did the groups focus on?
There were a lot of different things, I think. Living together in the village always was there. It kept building as the week went on. The other part of it is that personality starts coming forth as you live together for a while, and you’ve got the kid who doesn’t want to do anything, you’ve got the kid who’s fearful, you’ve got the kid whose basic nature is pleasant, and all that. And as time goes on people revert to whom they really are, and often there’s conflict and that has to be dealt with. And then you start getting beyond the conflict. There’s a whole group dynamic that starts building toward the end, and it starts coming back together. By the time they are leaving, they’re in tears leaving their best friends they’ve ever known. And so there’s a general kind of a dynamic that goes on, but the activities keep going throughout.
What were other elements of a typical day?
The counselors would awaken them and would have gone and gotten their morning-time sheets— all of them were available in a central location, and the counselors would have gone down and picked up the ones that they thought were going to be most appropriate for that day. And then the quiet time, and they would cook breakfast. Then there would be a lot of different things like swimming, canoeing, or crafts that were sort of “given” kinds of activities that they could do. And then there were the chores because they always had chores to do. And there were outdoor privies, and the favorite unfavorite kind of chore was to go and clean the privy and put the lime in it. That was something they all had to do. Privies, outdoor privies, were something that most campers had never known. There were a lot of different reactions to that, but it’s also a way of being close to the outdoors, and that kind of thing. And also, a group one day each week would have to clean one shower house. So they all had chores to do. And then things like guarding the campfire, doing the dishes, they all had to go and roll up their sleeping bags up into a pile to keep the spiders out, they had to sweep out their living area…those kinds of things.
So they’d have activities until lunch time, and then rest period, and then more activities in the afternoon. A lot of times they would get up early in the morning and go canoeing before breakfast and use that as their quiet time, go out in silence. We had a number of beaver dams around. One of the favorite activities was go out and watch the beavers, swimming around and slapping their tails. Sometimes just watching the sunrise. Or at nighttime, we’d do a lot of things like trust walks. One of my favorite things was to go walking at night without flashlights along the trails and being able to be comfortable in the dark. We had a graveyard on the camp. We could go out there and it would be another place for thinking about death—that was another kind of thing we’d deal with. As we looked at death, Freddy the Leaf was a book that we used to read a lot around there.
When I first got to Glenkirk, one of the previous things they’d done was to take campers out and scare them on the way to the cemetery, to the graveyard. I was totally opposed to that from the standpoint that this is not something to be frightened about. And the ghost stories were not allowed. We were not into trying to create fear when going to sleep. My belief was that campers need to be treated with dignity.
This may not be appropriate to tell, but one of the few times I really came down on a counselor was where they were punishing a camper for some misbehavior by locking the camper for a half hour in a privy. And, I really came down on that from the standpoint that a third grader as much as an 80-year-old is due human dignity. That didn’t happen very often. So one of the things we always had to deal with was how to discipline the campers, and we tried to deal with them with discipline that was appropriate to what was going on and that had some bearing on it, as just opposed to lashing out in ways that assert authority or whatever.
Did you stand as an authority to campers if they disobeyed at some level ?
Absolutely. I remember once where we had a senior high camper holding a third grader over a toilet, threatening to put his head into the toilet. That senior high went home. That was one of the few kids I ever sent home, because it’s just, we’re not going to do that.
All these things you’ve been talking about are built on trust, and community building, and there’s no room for that kind of stuff.
Yeah, and it was interesting to have all ages there at one time. And by being very much small group oriented, we could have third graders in one group, and senior highs in another. And then senior highs had to learn how to be appropriate with third graders. So there’s sort of an interesting dynamic, and I think a good dynamic from a standpoint that they were inclusive of what we’re all about at different ages, and you start seeing yourself in relationship to others.
For our night hike we’d do what we called “star awe.” I’m not one who remembers where all the different stars are and all the different things up there. But we’d go out and we’d start looking at, you know, “When I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established, what is man that you art mindful of them? What are we that we that God has created all of this?” And that stars out there are so far away that the light had to leave at the time that Jesus walked the earth to reach us tonight. And there’s so many thousands of stars, and the most you can see in one night is, I forget the number, but I knew it then, and so, what are we that God cares about us, that God created us? And then the other is to be able to hold hands and walk down the trail and not stumble and fall and find our way through and go out through the trees and end up down by the lake where geese are making their noises, and there’s just the wonderful silence of the night, and sometimes it’s a full moon and it’s just experiencing the wonder of nighttime . And it’s a very special time. To be able to be at home in the night in the out of doors.
But I want to back up and say that with our villages, a number of the campers lived in hogans, which were like covered wagons with wooden floors, and we had kerosene lanterns. You had to learn how to light a kerosene lantern and how to clean the globe. And so we’d have our lanterns out there. And we also had a couple villages of tree houses, which were a little bit like a Tarzan and Jane kind of a thing. And kids loved the tree houses.
What else were all camp things that were regular parts of the schedule?
That was primarily it, the open campfire. In the early days, back before I became director, there was a closing ceremony where the parents came that tried to recapture something of what went on during the week, but we drifted away from that. When parents came to pick up campers, counselors were there with the campers and we’d greet the parents and talk some about what went on. It was more of an individual kind of a thing instead of a huge gathering. When the parents came they would hike out to the village to see where they were staying, and we had a circle, a parking circle, and on the closing day the campers would have brought all their stuff out. We used something called “pony carts.” In the early days they were these carts that horses would pull— a two wheeled kind of a thing— and so the way we got our food out to our campsites was in these pony carts. The units all had one. Campers would pull the pony carts out and getting all the luggage back out to the circle they’d use the pony carts to load up their suitcase and bags. So each unit, each village, had its own cart, and it was used for hauling stuff out and hauling stuff around. They were used for hauling wood (and they had to take turns pulling the pony cart, that was another one of the chores). But the pony carts were wonderful.
Most of our groups came in on a Monday morning and left on a Saturday. But with our 2nd and 3rd graders, we had some sessions that were three days long, like a first night and a last night. And then we had what were called “Canoe Adventure Camps,” or adventure camps that went for 10 days. They would start out in our base camp at Glenkirk and then, depending on their age, they would go for anywhere from 3-5 days up to an outpost camp on the Shenandoah River where we leased a campsite. And we had a chuck wagon up there with all the food that they would need, and they would choose their meals from the chuck box. And we had an area where they were able to sleep. It was sort of an Adirondack type of shelter. The girls and the boys would sleep in the Adirondack shelter with the counselors down the middle. And they would choose their day use up there: they would go canoeing on the Shenandoah river or they’d go hiking out on the mountain, swim in the river, and take their baths in the river and cook all of their meals, all of them. Those were wonderful, wonderful adventure camps.
What were the biggest surprises along the way?
I think one of the surprises was how new each summer would be doing the same thing. My supervisor used to say, “You’ve been doing this for 15 years. You’ve been doing this for 20 years, and it seems like the same thing, aren’t you bored?” And the answer was, “No,” because what was remarkable was how new it would be each year. I mean, it was the same thing, but when you bring a staff together, it’s creating something new. And then when you’re working with each village, each week, week to week, even though it’s similar, it’s a new creation. When I first went there, finding counselors was always a task. I’d go out to a college day with the universities and colleges and compete against other camps to try to find camp counselors and staff. By the time I left there though, we were growing our own. People came back, and their general attitude was “I want to come back and give something that’s like what I received.” And so, when they’ve gone through the program it makes their training a whole different thing: people who want to pass it along. And that was something very satisfying. The fact that you can go 26 years and still feel like each day, each year, was a new day, that was remarkable to me.
I don’t know if this was a surprise, but what we did there was something so unique that it’s hard to recreate. I mean, one of the things we used to get from parents is, “We don’t know what you’re doing, but keep on doing it.” And it was hard to tell people what we did because you had to experience it in order to know what it was about. And the fact that the church was able to not only allow it but to feel good about what we were doing when it was so different from what institutional church is about, that part for me was very satisfying. I still get emails every once in a while where somebody says, “I was there, and it was just one of the most important things that ever happened.” So to be able to part of something so remarkable was almost other worldly.
How long did it take for that momentum to occur (counselors returning, campers becoming counselors, etc…) so you didn’t have to recruit as much?
I don’t know, it’s hard to know, I think the first four or five years there, things were very tenuous. I was under a lot of criticism in the early years, well not a lot, but there were those who were critical of the fact that we weren’t doing Bible study. And to be able to defend ourselves in light of that took some courage and took some time to get past it, and by the time I left there people weren’t so critical. But I did pay for that. I would say it took the first seven to eight years to get it built in.
What were the things you discovered that really didn’t work?
Well the first few years, I didn’t do the opening Monday night campfire, and I didn’t really want to do them. I didn’t like doing them, and by the time I left there it was one of things I enjoyed the most. And I came to realize how important it was for setting a tone for the week. And it was not only fun, it was worshipful, so it helped meet some of the criticism about not being worship space, it met some of the criticisms that people had. So the campfires on Monday night became more than a chore, but became a delight, and one of the things I most relish.
What instincts or skills did you find most useful as the director?
I guess I’m not terribly churchy, and I’m not terribly outwardly religious, but I’m terribly moral and very much on a spiritual journey. And it’s got to ring true for me in order for it to be true out there. I guess the other part of it is really being willing to stand for what you think about what’s right for the kids, the children, and treating them by who they are as opposed to what the church might want to put on them. One would think that we’d, like with a third grader, let a third grader be a third grader. Don’t put adult concepts on a third grader. And be willing to stand with that. So that became very important to me: to stand by my own truths.
Were there other models that you followed?
Wayne was really the dreamer on all of this. I was for a long time the student, and then Wayne left and then I became the teacher and student, I guess. But I think he was able to pick up the concepts of L.B. Sharp on doing best what you can do in the out of doors and what you can do best in the classroom. And that became really the guiding principle: do best in the out of doors what you can do. So, we were able to hone-in on awe and wonder of the out of doors and Christian living in Christian community. That’s what we could best do in the outdoors. So that was really the model of it, but back in the fifties, there was decentralized camping taking place all over the country. Church camps, a lot of them got started—Camp Hanover in Richmond was one of the earliest, Wayne had helped to start a camp in the Norfolk area, and the Methodists had Camp High Road up in Leesburg, VA—so there were many, many camps that got started back in the fifties and sixties, but none that I know of were quite as unique as what we were doing at Glenkirk. And there were others I’m sure, I just don’t know about it. The ones I knew about were not doing the same decentralized way that we were doing and being pure with it as we were.
Did you do formal Environmental Education?
We experimented with a lot of different things, particularly with our senior highs. We have several years that we ran camps that were very much ecology oriented and with food, many of them became vegetarians while they were here. But we also cooperated with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation facilities, and those camps would do lot of different things around ecology. They went out on the skipjack of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation for a day, or they went canoeing on the Shenandoah river and looked at it from a standpoint of the environment. They went hiking up in the mountains and looked at it from a standpoint of streams and waterfalls and a real emphasis overall around the environment and ecology. Overall, that was more focused than we did with a lot of our groups, but in general we were trying to look at the environment. For instance, when they’d go swimming in the Shenandoah River, they’d use soap that was environmentally safe, things of that sort. So we did have some specific ecology-focused programs with the senior highs. But within our basic framework there was a general emphasis on ecology and how we treat the earth. It was built into the day-to-day living .
Beyond morning reflection time, what other activities helped provide the campers’ spiritual experience?
That was key in terms of experience in the out of doors. I think the sense of Christian community, as they worked together and played together, and talked together, laughed together, questioned together, and all of that, leaves camp with a sense of belonging to something that was so special and that created new bonds with people where they had a sense about who they were, in light of being in a group. I think that Christian community was something that campers would never forget, and they would many times come back the same week again to be with their friends, and there were a number of relationships that developed among campers that became lifetime kinds of things. But I think we live in an isolation mode for the most part. And when we can feel a sense of community that’s bigger than we are, and there are bonds that make us cry when we leave, I think that’s a special dimension.
We set the tone about that in the way we did staff training. Our goal at staff training was to create a community so that we could bring in the campers of the summer into that community, and that was the goal. And if we could become that community among ourselves as a staff, then we could do it with the campers . And we’d go through many of the same things we’d do each session. We’d have a campfire that was similar, and we would do our cookouts, and we’d do our morning time, and we would do our crafts— I still have a craft project I did in staff training 35 years ago. It’s a letter opener; I used a piece of wood. And actually, another one is one of these toys where it has a round ball and a string and you catch it…I made it at staff training. I still have it, and the kids come here and they play with it…out of cedar wood. So we did everything, basically, but we also had more time for reflection and talking than they did in camp with the campers . We spent a lot of time looking at age groups and how to deal with them. But we learned the games, and we’d use Sharing Nature with Children, we’d go out and ‘hug a tree’ and all those kinds of things.
What would be the main pieces of advice you’d give someone who wanted to run a similar program?
Well I don’t know, I think you’ve got to have it in your own heart to start with, and to have a dream and a vision about what you want to see happen with kids and young people. You’ve got to go with basic truths and not by what the demands of organizations are, or church, or what-have-you. And you’ve got to be true to truth. I think a deep, deep respect for the dignity of every human being, how we all go through our developmental stages, and to find ways to use those stages that you can enhance for them as they’re going through them. And it varies from age to age as far as what campers are needing and what they’re looking for. And be willing to take the risk and provide those kinds of experiences, and be willing to sacrifice for it. One of our demands during staff training was that every person had to be there in order for you to be on the staff. And that meant that there were no exceptions. And I missed some of my kids baccalaureates and things of that sort because staff training was going on and I couldn’t be away. So you’ve got to be willing to walk the talk. And it means sacrifice, and high ideals, and being willing to meet the demands that it takes.
Any cautions? Warnings? Things to look out for?
Let me think about that… Expediency is always a temptation. And you need to be consistent in your standards. But, be willing to go where growth demands. I’ve met with many, many groups where different things happened, and my attitude was, “What can we learn from this?” And if we can learn from this, that’s more important than what happened. And there’s room for a second chance as long as there is true determination. And so that’s what Christian community is about. A lot of times it’s about forgiveness or making mistakes and learning through them and growing. So, I don’t want to be so dogmatic that this is a rule, etc. I think we have to go where growth demands that we go, and where forgiveness and second chances can lead us into new dimensions.
Funding was something I had to worry about, but one of the things I’m proudest of in all of this, is the last 3-4 years I was there, our enrollment was running anywhere from 94-96% of being full. It was based on the fact that one person was telling another. And it was not based on advertising campaigns—there were no slick advertising campaigns. It was word of mouth, and I had people saying, “My kid truly got something there.” So that’s something I’m very, very proud of. But our fees were never— well, they’ve gone up since then, and you can pay a lot of money to go to summer camp these days—but they were reasonable rates.
But I always had to deal with not only a summer camp but also a retreat facility during the year for church groups and other groups because we were a year-round facility. I did a little bit different program, but we did outdoor education in Montgomery County, Maryland, for about 15-20 years where 5th graders and their teachers would come for a week to study in the out of doors. Plus, we had some Virginia students, and while I was there we probably had around 20,000 5th graders and church groups on weekends. So, it’s not just the summer camps, but the summer camp is what was most unique. But outdoor education with the public schools involved some wonderful folks. The teachers would come, and they would live in our cabins and winterized facilities. And they would do water study, and orienteering, forestry, so forth and so on. One of the beautiful aspects of that is that teachers have to live with the students. That changes the whole dynamic of a classroom.
If you could do things differently, what would you do?
I’m so proud of what we did; I don’t know that we could ever have done it much better. I don’t have any regrets. Maybe like to have been able to live to be a hundred and done it for a longer period of time. I figure it was sad for me to leave on the one hand because I knew that this was a dream that would not necessarily live on in the same way. They’re doing some good things, but it’s not the same uniqueness that we had. I think for some of our church camps that they would find it easier to be churchy rather than real.
Do you have any reflections on how spiritual experience and learning about outdoors integrate as a piece? I mean, in contrast to environmental education with the schools, there might be a slightly different type of education going on in the camp setting as you’ve described it, just by virtue of what was happening in the camp, with that kind of learning condition. Any thoughts on that?
I think we were living close to nature, and I think that’s an experience that so many people— I grew up on a farm, I lived close to the earth when I was growing up—but I think it’s hard for us to care much about ecology and the environment when it’s so different in our make-up and our experience. By what we were doing by living in hogans and cutting wood, digging worms to go fishing, all of that kind of thing gives you a whole different perspective about things. If you get close to it, you’re more likely to love it. And I think that was our biggest gift in this whole area was that one of the ideals of our morning time was to get in touch with the world around us, the earth that we live in. And so, when you get down and start feeling it and getting dirty, I think you’re more apt to love it. And I think that the beginning of ecology, environmental science, is loving the earth. And you go to some other levels with that from the standpoint of identifying with where we come from, you know? Earth to earth and ashes to ashes. And so, I think we’ve got to get close to it, if we’re going to take care of it.
And if we’re going to know who we are, too?
I think that’s true too.
One of the things I would hope campers would take away is that they would feel good about who they are within the creation. I think love of the earth and love of others is love of self, and I think from their faith, love of God. But I think it begins with feeling good about who we are, loving ourselves and being glad that we are alive, being glad that we are who we are in all of our uniqueness, with all of our abilities and with all of our frailties. And I’ve been in other group experiences, and I feel good about who I am. So I think that’s the hope. And I’ve got contributions to make to that.
And environmental concerns— maybe they want to help the earth. And I think also the whole thing with our counseling staff— there’s something special about life that I want to pass along, I have something to give…passing on the heritage. College-age counselors can be mentors for people younger than them. Every age could do that, and sometimes I’d ask them to do that, and within the camp situation the high school students are able to pass something on to the third grader. To be able to see life in its greater dimensions and greater relationships is all extremely important. And we used to talk about the fact that you throw a rock into Lake Manassas, and the lake would be forever changed because it would ripple all the way across the lake. And one of the things that I believe and then we tried to pass along is that we as individuals change the course of history, maybe ever so slightly. Like an airplane flying across the sky, one slight change in our way or direction makes a big difference in the long run. One of my favorite things that I would say for myself is that every human being is capable of changing the course of history. And ever so slightly, and sometimes ever so real, just as the rock changes that lake.
What are the things that give you hope?
While I was there we’d have some 300-500 people on staff counseling and such, and that’s a mighty force out there. Our youngest son, who was on our staff, is an outstanding English teacher and English as a Second Language teacher. And he says that he learned more about teaching and working with students at Camp Glenkirk than he did in any of his classes. And people who came through Camp Glenkirk while I was there, whether they were summer campers or outdoor education or church groups, there were over 100,000 people involved. That’s just an estimate, I don’t have the concrete numbers, but I think for many of those people, their life was altered in some way more positively. So, the course of history is changed for the positive. And it’s not all me, but it’s a part of something that magically came together that was bigger than any one person. And it had a dynamic impact on them. And so from a hope standpoint there’s a lot in this world to be discouraged about and a lot of world issues and so forth and so on, but the more we can turn loose a force for good, the better off we’re going to be. And it can be ever so slightly just the way a person thinks and sees the world and makes decisions about who they are going to vote for, or whatever.
I feel very fortunate to have been in a place and time which led me to Camp Glenkirk, and to know Wayne Jones, to be in the situation that evolved. I didn’t go into it knowing what I know looking back on it. It’s an energetic kind of a thing that led me there and which is just a playing out of one’s life history, I guess. I believe very much that we have a reason for being here and if we can follow the energy of our life, it could lead us to areas that are unique for us to follow. So I’ve been very blessed to have been in that particular place and time. It all hinged on a lot of different decisions and a lot of different chance meetings of people and having the bosses I’ve had that allowed me to do what I needed to do— a whole lot of things came together that were very special.
Postscript
“Be sure that the barn door is closed”. This saying goes back to Camp Glenkirk days and is based on a story of a boy living on a farm with the responsibility of caring for the horses. An emergency came up in the night, frightening all the animals in the barn to run away. Others in the household yelled at the boy to wake up and take care of the horses. His response was that he did not need to get up—“The barn door is closed”. This story was used often in a campsite of campers at the end of the day as a reminder to make sure that everything was in order and safe in case of an emergency during the night. I would like to use this as a metaphor for my life as I get close to the night time of life. For the most part, I have taken care of and accomplished the things I needed to do in my life—I feel satisfied with my life and am at peace with it—I feel that I have in some small way made a difference and will leave the world better for my having lived—though I am still alive and there may be more to come, for the most part I have closed the barn door.
I remain awestruck by the miracle of life itself—that I am here alive at this moment—grateful for the experience of blooming for a day as a part of the creative force at work. I would welcome the opportunity in a million years from now if I could come back to earth as a flower, if not a human being—by then maybe the earth will be healing from the destruction we have brought to it—if not earth, another planet would be fine.