I got a new job.

Now, when arriving in Waco back in August, I tried to think hard about what I’d like to spend my time as a wage earner doing. I came up with books… and coffee shops. And long-haul truck driving, but that might’ve caused parental disownership or something.

So I quickly (i.e., day I got back) put in applications at both sorts of places at the same time. Barnes and Noble hired me first and hired me quick, so I let the other apps lie fallow. And I was content to work shelving magazines and running a cash register for a couple of months.

(I was NOT content to wear business casual clothes every day, however, so I subtly decided to stick it to the Man by wearing polyester pants and thusly carving out my own offbeat style niche. Then I realized that polyester pants were uncomfortable, which is probably why the whole sexual revolution went down in the ’70’s or something. People were probably finding all sorts of excuses to take those bad boys off.)

But about a month ago, a coffee shop called, saying they were hiring. I’d researched ‘em pretty well, and while the bookstore was good in and of itself, this seemed like it might just be an even better fit. And there’d be free coffee. Not to mention that I could downgrade to just khakis, or shorts, even. That was a plus.

So I signed up, said a tearful farewell to bookselling (and, honestly, a great management team and coworkers), and moved over to the land of what Stan Ward calls “legal stimulants.”

It’s been rad. I get to start my day before the sun starts his at times, but that also just means I get to come home at 11:00 and nap. (Suckers!)

But I also get minimum wage. Just like the last job. Which is still more than I’ve ever earned hourly at any previous point in life (see: Christian summer camp and college work-study). But still- you got to, I don’t know, keep the belt a little tighter on that sort of income.

I can hold down an apartment. I can eat food. I can afford the occasional new book of interest, though I visit the library more often these days. But I have gone from middle-class comfort to, well, probably what the majority of my fellow countrymen are used to. Working hard, and NOT getting glamorous dividends and rewards for it.

This is not a complaint. This is a blessing. Before this year, I was pretty sure I was unmaterialistic because I shopped at Goodwill, rather than the mall. But that’s back when I spent extraneous money on clothes (freaking polyester pants!). Now, I feel bummed if I don’t spend x amount of money on iTunes every month. What in the world?

On particulary bad days, there’s a bit of an instinct to feel like a the biblical character of yore, one whose house got blown down and his cows torn up. Who got boils on his skin and picked ‘em with pottery. Who was told to curse God and die. He had a comfy life, then quickly, kaput! All he had left were his bones and his faith. But if I’m honest with myself, I got a lot more than that.

I am seeing, on one hand, how spoiled I am, if my life is dependent on the ability to point-and-buy for my comfort and satisfaction. I am, on the other, seeing how blessed I have been, and would hope to be again, with a little extra margin to do things with.

Most of all, however, I am forced to seek the face of Christ for both my joy, and my material need. And that’s never a bad thing. If I can’t escape into a new purchase for some momentary joy, makes sense that I become that much more wide open to live my life influenced by a heavenly treasure.

I even wonder if this would help me become more generous. If I learn to live with just what I need, can I freely give away the extra? Or even tithe, which is a discipline I am learning to enjoy.

Praise God that I didn’t launch into cushy-ness. Today, I am a real person, working a job that doesn’t make extra bank, and I am a small and minor part of a large and persistent workforce.

Thusly he gets bigger. And in God’s economy, the bigger he is, the better the Job gets.

Okay. Let’s give a little context here.

So far, I’ve used this space to document the joys and lessons that have come out of a year at Pine Cove, both as a valued employee of their summer camping staff and as a sometimes-really-confused student in the Forge discipleship program. And those lessons are captured in digital print so that I can be called on ‘em and held to them. But I’ve neglected to talk about what’s come after.

That would be non-collegiate life in Waco, Texas.

As a student at Baylor, I used to view this place as The City Around My College. Not so much as The City Where My College Is. There’s a subtle difference, but it’s key.

Assuming I get my demographics right, this place is majorly blue-collar, and we boast one of the largest per-capita populations of folks below the poverty line in the state, if not the U.S. We house a lot of weird things ranging from creepy (“You know what’d be fun tonight? Going to that bombed-out Branch Davidian compound while it’s REALLY DARK!!”) to peculiar (one of our local museums apparently has a painting done by Hitler. As in, Adolf). We are smack in between two Texan bastions of culture, DFW and Austin, and yet none of the interest or cool factor seem to rub off. And as a student at our prestigious Jerusalem-on-the-Brazos University, it seems like the only involvement you have with the community at large is if you treat it as a project. You don’t stay in a town that merits a “poor you” mentality. And you certainly don’t go back by choice after a year away from it. That’s lame.

But my apartment’s right by 35 now! And boy, those passing trucks on the freeway do lull me to sleep at night.

So why spend time here if not to get a fine Baptist education? Well, actually, that’s the goal.

With any luck and a little prayer, I start back at Baylor for an M.S. Ed in May. But the application’s not yet filled out, and until Friday, I got no GRE scores. God has a penchant for bigger plans than I usually envision, so this may not materialize. But I’m pretty confident teaching is the next step, so I don’t see why not.

Until then, I’m taming a wild newsstand at our friendly community Barnes & Noble for a few shifts a week and trying my hand at freelancing on the side. I may have recently found myself eating mostly peanut butter to get to the end of the month. But this kind of stuff is fun. I am seeing the value of trusting Jesus for daily bread in a community where half would settle for even a weekly loaf, and those at school might be tempted to think life is a giant Panera.

So that’s the scene. The backdrop isn’t glamorous, and I’m still trying to get a hold on my lines. But there’s a lot to learn still, even outside of camp gates.

Welcome to young adulthood, Part I. May the march toward maturity continue anew.

I decided to pick my Sharpies back up:

This is with the other 2 Sunday in Black and White strips on the “Comics” page.

We’re building some material here. SLOWLY.

Here’s the problem with free wi-fi: it’s tempting to abuse the privilege.

I was in Panera Bread a couple weeks ago for a meeting. Not like, an official businessy one. More like a couple people meeting to plan something on their own time. Regardless, whatever it was, I was early for it.

I partially blame camp. If you ain’t early, you ain’t on time. I also blame my abstractly-geared memory. But waiting around, I had time to kill, so out came the handheld digital device and up came the internet. I dawdled for about 15 minutes before a friend texted me to expose my overeagerness, so I left, locking eyes with one of the front counter attendants.

When I got back, my friends still hadn’t arrived, so I got back on the web. The front counter lady was still there. I thought she was giving me a look. Then my friends finally showed up, and hey, it was about time for dinner! So I got up to order.

Now, my pocketbook is slimmer than it used to be, and as a result I am slimmer than I used to be. I choose to go cheap at resturants these days. When it was my turn in line, I decided to get one of the least costly things on the menu- a cherry bagel that was denoted as a special promotion that week. I brought out my debit card to pay no more than 2 dollars.  I gave it to the front counter attendant, who then handed back my receipt and drolly said, “thanks for your contribution.”

I was taken aback a little. What the heck?!? Now, I know it might be viewed as a little impolite to freeload off wi-fi for a bit, but I had just established myself as a paying customer! Was it just because I didn’t get some more expensive sandwich? I know the economy’s saggy, but seriously? Sarcasm? Give me a break.

We sat down and I got my bagel delivered to me. I got more disappointed: it didn’t even look right. It wasn’t a letter “O.” It looked more like a Jesus fish. One of those ones you’d find on the back of a Southern fundamentalist’s car, eating a “Darwin” fish with legs and boasting the word “Truth” inscribed inside its loopy form.

I told my friends how unhappy I’d made Panera and what I thought my bagel now looked like. One of them looked real close and observed, “hunh. It looks like one of those breast cancer ribbons. Isn’t Panera selling some bagel that helps with research?”

Oh.

“Thanks for your contribution,” she had said.

So yeah. That’s right. Even with little dollars in my pocket, I helped with cancer research. I’m a saint.

I’m also seeing that jumping to conclusions and helping society are two totally different things, even if they happen at the same time. Which I guess they did for me.

I felt less bad for freeloading then. And more bad for being a jerk.

We are done on Saturday!
Out of the gates. Out of Columbus. Back to normal life. Amen and amen and amen.

This will be good. Last year, I was getting ready to finish my summer while looking toward 8 months in Tyler. Now, I’m trying to hold the prism up to the light to see what Waco will be like. I hope it means a job suitable for a guy who’s lived deep inside a Christian bubble for the past year (though that is not a detriment, trust me).

Before any of that, we have a group of inner city kids coming from Dallas. Mercy Street is the name of the ministry, and it’s lead by a man named Trey Hill who I’ve talked about before. He’s a man who puts his money where his mouth is– his life bespeaks a ton of integrity as far as loving and ministring to a population that has few chances to succeed and excell at the American Dream.

My prayer is that we all get to finish strong over here. I’m learning again and again the lesson Jesus taught Paul about weakness: it’s only when we’re in it that His power is made perfect. I’m looking forward to sleeping in my bed for a whole day when this finishes, but I’ll definitely miss the sense of being poured out to the last dregs while God gets ready to do His thing.

Funny how He empties us out first.

I write you now from a Starbucks in rainy Clinton, Mississippi. I was allowed today to attend the funeral of a close friend’s mother along with the majority of my Forge classmates from this past year. Now, we are waiting out a pretty persistent rainstorm that’s razzing all the drivers on I-20.

And confession: with this, I have now missed more camp this year than my previous five summers COMBINED.

4 days to illness

3 for a wedding

2 visiting a sister camp

A couple for this funeral.

(And a partridge in a pear treeeeeeee!)

I feel slight guilt. You would expect your final go ’rounds to be meaningful, purposeful, pedal to the metal. But I’ve missed like a week and a half of action now. How does that work? These were not my plans; I’m not prone to stepping away from my post. Maybe I’m like Red in The Shawshank Redemption… I don’t like being OUT.

I did hear something that helps me put it in perspective, though. One of the staffers at our sister camp, Crier Creek, did an internship sandwich: a summer on staff, a summer not, then a summer back. And his observation about coming back?

“it’s funny to see how people fill roles summer after summer. You always have the funny kid, the worry wart, whoever, even if it’s a different person filling the role each year. It always works that way. Everyone is replaceable.”

Even me? Hello, pride.

If I’m not at camp, someone has to make sure things run. And whenever I’ve been gone this summer, they HAVE. Well. I am not neccesary. My faith and obedience just allow me to join in the work God’s already doing.

How refreshing.

(plus, after six years somewhere, you figure you’d get SOME vacation time…)

Well, the staff switched out this week. And the transition was fairly smooth. The only drawback is that between folks getting ready for Rush and being RA’s and taking classes and such, the second half of the summer just means less staff. We’ve joked a lot about how our director’s 3 year-old son quotes John 10:10: “God must get bigger; I must get smaller.” We’re finding this to be literally true. If our staff shrinks a little, God certainly has to get a little bigger.

This is by no means an emergency, by the way. It just means I don’t have the luxury of having extra staff to put on random projects and odd jobs. We have to budget who we put where that much more wisely.

Otherwise, it’s beginning to sink in that I have five weeks of this left. On a good day, that’s exciting because God is big and camp is fun. On a day when I look at my belly button more than I do at Scripture, it becomes a wariness toward five more weeks of doing the same thing OVER and OVER again.

May the spirit prevail over the old self! And may God keep increasing.

You know what an Ebeneezer is, right?

That line in “Come Thou Fount” used to confuse me. What the heck was that? We were making a Christmas Carol reference here? Scrooge in a hymn?

No. It’s a rock of rememberance, literally. An object that helps you remember an important moment in your life, your experience with God.

I got an Ebeneezer this week.

See, we have the kids paint rocks here for Arts and Crafts. This is actually pretty fun. Columbus has an abundance of rocks of different shapes and types, and girls like to paint things on them with paint pens, some of which are very creative. Some, too, are creepy–  I found a rock at camp the other day that said “Michael Jackson- RIP.” Interesting.

A little girl made me a personal rock after our Friday night game. We call it Battle of the Brumbies, and it works like this: all the counselors and staff get in a giant mud pit on the North side of camp and put rubber bands on our arms and legs. We then bring all the kids over, and for four, 0ne-minute rounds, they try to take the bands off of our flailing limbs. It’s a literal (but safe) fight to the death, and a really fun night.

But lately, the kids haven’t been as bloodthirsty as they used to be. The pit is a little smellier than usual (I blame the heat), so they don’t really come in after us. They kinda’ sit and watch, so we end up having to literally chase them to take bands from us.

This week, me and my assistant Program Director decided to start talking some loving smack to encourage a more passionate response from the young ones. We told them that we were too fast, that the kids couldn’t catch us– and we started saying this Monday morning to whip up as much of a frenzy as possible.

Flash forward to Friday night. I am standing in the pit, still clad in my bands, trying to keep the fervor alive. So I took my place between the counselors and kids, holding up my right arm with outstretched rubber band and asking the campers, “who wants THIS!?! Who thinks they can take this from me!?!”

And this 7th grade girl at the front told me, “you’re going down, Fuzzy Wuzzy!”

The round began. I dug my feet into muddy ground and prepared for battle. And this sweet, innocent young lady who I had just taunted…

…transformed into Kathy Bates at the end of “The Waterboy.”

I got tackled. My read end got planted into smelly Columbus clay. And before I knew, kids were all over me, tearing, tearing, tearing–

Anyway, she got my rubber band.

I thought that was the end of it. I acknowledged the fact that you should not rouse children to fury, and that pride goes before a fall. And then I got handed a rock. One the little girl had found before she left camp. And it proclaimed:

“Fuzzy got beat by a girl!”

and

“I got Fuzzy’s rubber band.”

But, worst of all:

“Fuzzy, watch your back, because (insert little girl’s name) is COMING FOR YOU!!!”

It will now be a paperweight on my desk. And furthermore, a millstone around my neck. Dang it all. Here I raise mine Ebeneezer, and it says, I literally got beat by a girl.

Did you enjoy half-Christmas this Thursday? I sure did.

I mean, you’ve been outside recently, right? Feel the sweat spewing from your brow as soon as you hit your porch? Me too. We’ve been writing some new pages for the camp playbooks with this drastic heat-wave Texas is feeling. Some involve changing up the daily schedule a little bit (we now do most sweat-causing things in the morningtime). And some… some involve creating whole holidays out of thin air.

 Especially ones that bring to mind a colder time of year.

See, most Americans celebrate half-Christmas in July (well, IF they celebrate it at allllll), but since that’s on a weekend, we went ahead and had our very merry Outback Christmas on June 25. Don’t get jealous that we got to:

-Dress in all green and red. My only green stuff was a pair of Smartwool hiking socks stuffed into TOMS. That made my feet humanitarian, toasty, and really dry all at the same time.

-Have a liquid snowball fight. You contain liquid snowballs in water balloons. See also shaving cream (so that we had fluffy white material adding to the illusion).

-Invite Santa Claus to eveningtime Flag Lowering. In lieu of reindeer, we used a half-blind horse with antlers attached to his headgear. And a red nose. Santa always must be preceded by a red nose.

The coolest part by far, however, was seeing how our staff pulled it off. From our work crew sprint-decorating our dining hall on Wednesday night to counselors who got their kids to sell out and rejoice in faux-holiday cheer, I’m realizing that this is neat ministry. Four weeks ago, some of these colleagues were just figuring out what counseling WAS. Now they’re on top of the game enough to change things around for a bit. That’s a FAST progression. And I think that’s totally enabled by grace.

This week is the last for a lot of our staff; after July 4, we’ll bring in a whole new crew of counselors to finish out the summer (we work on a halves-based system). It’ll be sad to see these guys go. But too, I’m looking forward to see what’s cooking for next half.

Unless “cooking” means “more heat wave.” In that case, cool me down…

So I was told to get out of the office the other day. At first, I wasn’t sure how to take that.

Just so you know (and this will tie together in a minute), sunny Columbus, TX is currently at 85 degrees Farenheit, with humidity making it feel like a balmy 91. That’s at 11 am, as I write this. In the afternoons it gets even worse, up to the point where you could probably make a nice omlet on the sidewalk. Needless to say, for committed counselors who are required to teach classes in this sort of sweltery weather, sweat pours forth like curse words from a sailor’s mouth.

In contrast, my job (the one where you have to orchestrate the logistics of camp) seems to look a lot like being behind a desk with my laptop in the well-maintained A.C. In my defense, there’s always a pile of stuff for me to do: schedules to make, assignments to fill in, instructions to type, club talks to plan. And still getting my other staff up to speed on what it looks like to run the program, I honestly feel the weight of making sure things are just planned well.

So when one of our executive leadership dropped in the other day to check on things at Outback, he found me pecking at a set of instructions on how our still-green counselors were supposed to play the Thursday night game. This was just after he had played football with some of the campers in that sweltery, 100+ degree heat.

He asked me how I was doing, and then noted how he always seemed to see me inside the office.

“Yeah, I know.” I told him. “I’ve just got this stuff to plan for tonight. And I’ve got a talk coming up. There’s just a lot of stuff to do.”

He told me that there would always be stuff to do in the office. (This from a man whose career before Christian camping involved expanding sales markets for a pretty well-regarded company. He knows what it looks like to get stuff done.)

If I wasn’t careful, he warned, I would keep getting sucked into the tedious work of the computer. Maybe next week, he suggested, he and I could grab some cold Gatorades and go around handing them out to the staff.

Our conversation ended pleasantly enough (he also told me he was excited that his phone picked  up the office wi-fi). And while this wasn’t a wrist-slap by any means, I wondered about his words. Wasn’t planning stuff supposed to be my main job?

The next morning, I found my plate was clear enough for me to go watch a wrestling match in the pool. One of the boys’ cabins had been talking smack to their counselor all week and their Sr. Counselor, a guy named Dubai and Conquer, decided they needed to learn that a mouth shouldn’t write a check that skills can not cash. At camp, it’s an unspoken rule that campers always win, so even as Dubai declared that he and his counselor would not get dunked within 30 minutes’ time, I knew it would be a tragic battle.

Five-ish minutes in things, did not look good for my staff, so I decided to enter the fray. Instantly, at least three sets of hands started trying to teach me the meaning of gravity. One 7th grader was blessed with my size and weight, and after tossing off my other challengers, he and I began to engage in single combat, often made more inconvenient when random 4th grade boys would lock onto my back and try to drown me like possesed chimpanzees. 

We didn’t go down without a fight. But we staffers didn’t last 30 minutes either (surprise). The campers felt pretty good about that, and furthermore, we had just engaged in some rad male bonding. It’s weird, but nothing shows a boy you approve of him more than taking the time to dunk him underwater (safely).

I took some time to recuperate by getting on the lifeguard stand, and after realizing I had actually done something good outside the office with my staff, another thing was brought to my attention:

Camp was fun.

Logistics are NOT fun. I hate logistics. And next summer I plan on hitting up grad school, so I may not get another shot at camp like this. 

…I need to soak it up before it’s too late.

It’s good to plan things, but it’s also good to interact with campers, to serve alongside your sweaty staff, to share the Gospel, to do high ropes, to get a freaking tan. And that’s why I needed to get out of the office: there’s a lot of moments to maximize out there. For my staff’s sake, but also, selfishly, for me.

So I rejoice. It may be hotter than heck outside, but we’re teaching kids about the kingdom. And at the end of the day, stuff will get planned; God’s gracious like that. But I get paid to go have fun with kids.

I can get out of the office for that.