marking time

looking for the throughline of my life

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I tend to be fascinated by the passing and marking of time; how long ago decisions, choices, relationships, and actions have influenced my life path and impacted the person I am (becoming).

I am drawn to reflect on; What has stayed the same? How I have changed and hopefully grown? What relationships continue and how have they weathered the years? I wonder about people who I lost contact with. I can also be mesmerized by memories of moments with individuals and groups, laughter and struggles, but always the joining together.

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2026 brings two such moments of memory for me.

Fifty-five years ago, June 1971, the summer before my last year of high school I travelled about two and a half hours south, to work at a church camp in the foothills of the Cascades. It was a time of my “Great Awakening”, and it happened at near warp speed. I found myself in a community of older adolescents and young adults who were united in belief and focused in work. We thought we were offering hope for all in those days coming out of the turbulent sixties.

only photo from 2nd summer @ 1st camp, (maybe as clear as my memories)

I reinvented myself, thrived, thought this was it, the thing I was looking for. I hoped it would never end. Also, in that summer camp setting I met Connie, a few years later we would marry and we are still together, still finding our way. Together with Connie I have continuing connections with a few friends from that summer.

In recent years I joined with an online group for people linked through “the old days” at the camp. Last fall I recommended a book to the group that was quickly attacked for being “liberal.” Someone scoured the internet to find proof of my straying from the fold. Apparently the group was for those who stayed on the “right” path. I prefer to believe that I didn’t so-much leave the path as that the summer was a beginning and the path took me in another direction (or directions).

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Fifty years ago, June 1976, Connie and I ventured north to serve as program directors at another religious camp. We lived in a rustic cabin with tarps covering chicken wire windows and a single light bulb overhead for the following four summers. For me it was the next major step in seeing my dream become a reality. I wanted to live the camp life forever… Camp and the relationships formed through the power of living, recreating, eating meals, working together nearly every waking hour. It brought an intensity that is difficult to replicate.

1976, 2nd camp, 1st year

That summer job eventually played into our joining the camp staff and expanding my role for nine years. Leaving the camp found us settling in Bellingham, growing a family, me shifting from camp to local church roles and other work, to now being in our retirement stage, and still in Bellingham. Staying in the area many of our core friendships started at camp and have bridged the decades. Over the years I stayed on the fringes of camping serving as an interim executive director for a camp in 2024.

I reached out this spring to connect with the current program director. I thought it would be interesting to meet and talk, comparing camp over fifty years. It took some work, but I eventually arranged a meeting with the executive director.

In July Connie and I met with the executive director and talked for about an hour followed by a brief walk through the camp area and an introduction to the current program director.

The meeting felt like something from my life in organizational consulting. Interesting to get the formal updates. I can evaluate camp organizations and programs with the best of them. The walk through was quick and left little space for reflection.

I didn’t expect to be immersed in a sense of “camp.” I did not think they would be amazed by my perspectives. I wanted to mark the moment and that was accomplished.

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Throughout my career shifts I discovered it was not as much about the camp setting as finding ways to bring the essence of relationships that I valued to how I connected and worked with others, whatever the context.

I was at a Memorial service recently and saw people from each setting and decade I had worked in from the 1970’s through the 2020’s. In that solemn context it was a gift to connect with a number of people from over the years.

Connie and I have spent most of our adult lives within a few miles of the second camp, the one we worked at the longest. Even though we moved a short distance across town we have significantly shifted our life, beliefs and practices in ways that our younger selves could not have imagined, or likely approved of.

I think part of my curiosity in these anniversaries is the opportunity to reflect on how I have grown and changed. I can still be caught in a transcendent moment, breathing deep, lost in a memory. I am thankful for the experiences and relationships, while realizing I am in a much different life space.

While I can’t say I am thankful for everything I experienced in the intervening years, I am clear-eyed in saying I am thankful for those early opportunities, for those who supported and encouraged me and primarily thankful for where I am today, in my life, marriage and community.

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My book Crash Course, 101 Stories, Each 101 Words or Less, is available at: local independent bookstores and online at bookshop.org and other sources.

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