It was the fall of 2001. I had just finisheda very rewarding summer season of
Camp Iawah glory and I was making my
first real steps towards being 'out there' -
no longer in school and ready to make
my first tracks into the real, cruel world.
This would not be an easy process but
essential to my existence, nonetheless. I
had badly bleached blonde hair with
super black roots and wore my
oversized blue envy hoodie almost every
other day. I had decided that Kingston
was the city I wanted to take root within.
I had a lot of friends there but at that
time, the core group of friends I had come to know and love were moving...
changing...evolving in many ways. Jeff was getting married the following
spring and was now getting into a serious 'older-guy' routine. He had a full
time job at Bombardier and excelled in pretty much everything he did. He
was still (and will always be) an excellent guitarist but instead of wanting to
play indie rock shows with me, he was content playing more at church and
his amplifier knob barely ever went past 2 or 3 in the din of his bedroom.
Montana, though, was still his wild and crazy Korean roommate but even
he was starting to ask some serious life questions and begun to seem more
down in the dumps. I used to think that being down in the dumps meant
you were 'questioning' or 'struggling' with something but I realized that my
thought patterns, especially concerning my faith, had been very naive for
some time. But naievity, as it were, would be leaving my life very soon.
Then there was Brian. Brian was only a guy I'd ever known through other
people - He had lived with Jeff through most of Jeff's university career
and a cousin of another great camp friend of mine named Paul.
Brian was only an intimate part of my life for a few months but he
really played a big role in helping me figure out some 'crap'. One
of the best memories I have of Brian is living in his reaction to my
having fiery diarrhea from an extra spicy #5 from the Wok-In (seeing
as it was the first meal of that day) in the park near his house. Brian
helped me plan and organize 'All The Hype' part deux. All The Hype
part one happened in May of 2001 on a dirt-track. It was a day
long concert of Christian bands (most of whom are now defunct)
and an excuse to try event-planning. Both years were minimal
successes - financial nightmares but massive learning experiences.
Brian helped me take it up a notch for year two. I remember
praying with him, when part deux was all said and done, on a
rock with Jared Siebert. Jared's prayer was as real as they come:
"God...you're friggin invisible. Why do you make it so hard?"
You couldn't have three more different personalities praying on
that rock...but there we were. Stuck in the mire of beauty of
it all. (Brian is getting married soon.)
To better explain Kingston, though, I feel I need to backpedal a little.
That summer, I believe the word I referred to that described my camp
experience was 'glory' - I really don't think any other word would
suffice. For most of my life, being a Christian had been a strange,
idiot-filled, nearly incomprehensible, masochistic uphill experience
but that summer, I reached a place where I actually felt secure in my
faith, surrounded by an amazing community, in which my ripe age of
25 was right smack in the middle of the age-dynamic of the massive
staff that year. Though there are flaws that I see now, the whole feel
of the summer had a glow of...childishness. It's as if fantasy and reality
were intermingled for those two months and anything that was
unachievable was achieved through a hard-working, dedicated, loving,
mature and inter-supportive staff family. It was a time in my faith
where I needed refreshment and craved a connection with God as
opposed to cold, hard facts. This type of Christianity was becoming a
major form of uprising to the boring, dusty churches of North America
but I didn't feel that joining a Pentecostal assembly was any type of
answer.
In the times in my life where I have connected, and I mean truly and
hyper-consciously connected with the big Man, it has always been
genuine. I've never really been any good at faking, especially towards
my faith - it feels fake most of the time anyways so any sense of reality
within is always guarded well.
That summer was real. There was a team running the music or
'worship' (a term I'm not so comfortable using anymore) and it was a
major pathway for people to reconcile, re-connect, and become
introduced to the Father. I don't know why - It certainly wasn't because
of anything we did. We were scared. It was Josh, Zac and I who really
ran the show and decided who went where, what song would fit,
what style of music we should play and what mood we were sensing,
etc., etc. I've never been a part of a music team so clearly focused
on God-ness that was as powerfully blessed as that summer.
I long for those days, in some respects. I wish that everyone could have
as powerful of an experience as that summer in such a golden community
of diverse people.
But I am here and now.
I must make sense of what I have.
Come along with me, won't you?
