WTE: What I learned at youth camp

At the end of the pavement above Sinks Canyon, a collection of rustic buildings marks Fremont County Youth Camp. Last week ten dozen Lutheran youth and their counselors from across Wyoming and the Nebraska panhandle gathered there. I was privileged to be one of them.

Camp is a world of rocks and water and fire—solid things, real things that ground lives in the good earth and its Creator. These elements present unlimited possibilities while simultaneously imposing strict boundaries. Consider the million ways to enjoy a mountain lake while always respecting the very real dangers of the frigid water.

The digital world lies to us. It pretends to offer the gifts of the real world without its dangers. No matter how realistic the pixilated world of video games may seem, the falsities of the virtual world are exposed by skinned knees, goose bumps and gravestones.

By bringing us and our children back to these elemental realities, our minds are cleared of the cobwebs of modernity. With each switchback up the mountain, our cell phones lose signal bars. Until that point, we had not realized that these invisible tethers to the outside world were as hard as the iron bars of a prison cell.

Camp opens the door to a new world, free and grounded. In this microcosm of several acres, campers have the opportunity to remember what life is about. Strangers are thrown together in time and space and, over the course of days, find sweet society.

Under the watchful and loving eye of parents and counselors, boys and girls cultivate manhood and womanhood. They come to understand that family is both a safe haven in which to grow and also a beautiful goal toward which to strive. It is the basic building block of society preserved for them to enjoy.

The dynamics of love and family, parents and children, are as solid and real as the rocks, water and fire. They offer limitless possibilities within unyielding boundaries. Parents are obligated to invite the next generation into the possibilities while pointing out the boundaries. Both make happiness a reality.

Affections stirred at camp occasionally mature into marriages and children of the next generation. Most often, the bonds of friendship are simply a step along the path to maturity. Persons are to be respected—body and soul—not objectified and used. The beauty of this growing awareness exposes the ugly perverseness that prevails in the counterfeit culture at the bottom of the mountain.

The more clearly the goodness of human society comes into view, the more obvious it is that wickedness is no arbitrary and subjective judgment. The true desires of the human heart for wholesome society are directly threatened by every perversity.

For this reason, building a society safe and good for families requires not only lifting up the good, but keeping out the evil. For a blissful week, parents and counselors were aided in this task by escaping beyond the reach of technology. Corrosive images and messages meant to rob children of their vision of the good were temporarily held at bay.

After lights-out, parents and counselors could rest more easily, knowing that the day’s work was not being undone by Hollywood productions meant to sexualize children for profit. The positive effects of this media blackout were obvious. How can we not give thought to protecting vulnerable children from these same threats at the bottom of the mountain?

Creating a safe environment for the next generation requires both offense and defense—both open spaces and fences. Through the week, these truths became ever clearer.

Today it is clearer than ever that we must speak, and speak effectively. We must continue to teach our own children well and resist the pervasive perversions of the day. We must encourage our neighbors to raise their children as future spouses for our own children. We are in this together. The happiness of our children and our neighbors’ children meld into one.

We must also plainly call out the open wickedness of those who would abuse and pervert our children for personal gain. They work their evil in school boards, council chambers and state houses across the land. Under the guise of freedom, they aim to enslave. With the promise of happiness, they work misery.

The society of summer camp should not be an idyllic oasis visited once a year. Coming down the mountain should not be a capitulation to the swamp of evil. It is, rather, an advance of goodness into evil, a reclamation of territory for the joy and well-being of future generations. We owe it to the young men and women who long for family but need our help. It is our solemn duty to children yet unborn.

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, August 14, 2020.