Wednesday Words – Crosstalk Ministries Day Camps

Good morning Friends! Here we are with the April edition of Wednesday Words. Our guest blogger this month is Christopher Lougheed who has a long history with Day Camps stretching back over 20 years to his time as a Camper in my longtime home Parish of St. Matthew’s!
But we will let him tell his own story.
Welcome Christopher…

Greetings everyone, this is Chris Lougheed. I led a team in Northern Saskatchewan last summer; now I’m (temporarily?) back in Montreal and on the Day Camp planning committee. When not in Day Camp mode, I’m doing research for an academic book on how to take care of relationships with powerful people in the late Roman empire. When does it become obvious to other people that you’re doing that? How does that make you look? When does the fact that you’re taking care of relationships with powerful people become something that you have to talk about?

This research has been only half-connected with my own life, though in looking at ancient etiquette and public image crafting you would be surprised how much still applies. Anyway, the parallel with prayer is obvious enough. Do I look like someone who prays? What would that look like? I’m not completely sure how I would answer those questions, partly because there is a potential danger not only in being seen to pray, but also in praying to be seen (in the subcultures where that’s still a plus). But in Day Camps, whether or not it looked like it exactly (I’m not always sure), I have been someone who habitually needed to pray, and part of teams that habitually needed to pray, for weeks on end. I believe that prayer allowed us to do what we did there, and I think that, on and off Day Camps, it has changed and shaped who I am.

Have a great week!