Driving down Port Oneida is like running down the stairs wide eyed and way too excited in your pajamas on Christmas morning.  The anticipation of another wonderful summer rich with love fills your entire body.  You can’t wait to get out of the car and find the first person to give a hug to.  Seeing your extended family for the first time in a few months is one of the most exciting moments, it is never awkward or uncomfortable, but it feels like you just saw them yesterday.  The hugs here are full of genuine love and good nature; we whole-heartedly care about each other.  What we have here is something special.  You can’t paint a picture of it, make a written explanation of it or explain it to a friend; you can only feel it and be a part of it.

When I tell friends I am going to be a camp counselor sometimes I get funny looks or the polite, but not accepting, “oh that’s great”.  But they don’t know; they don’t know that this place has made me the person I am today.  This place has kept the childlike beauty, holiness, and energy alive in me to this day.  I have gained confidence, friends, overcome challenges, been tried, and succeeded all in a matter of sun filled weeks.  Yes, I have chosen to come to camp during the summers instead of interning to figure out my future or make a ton of money because “Beloved children, the world has need of you, — and more as children than as men and women:  it needs your innocence, unselfishness, faithful affection, uncontaminated lives” (Misc 110: 4).  Why worry about the future when the present is so harmonious and beautiful?  I think we would be concerned and shocked if a Little Dipper or an Argonaut came up to us and said, “I am really worried about what I am going to do after college.”  First we might laugh and then scoop them up in our arms and let them know how loved they are at this very second.  This is the uncontaminated love we should all be feeling on a daily basis.  Each of us here can offer that love not only to the campers, but to each other and to other people in our lives because “what blesses one blesses all.”

I can remember the first time I came to camp, it was the best summer ever!  I was about nine and the typical camper, homesick, cute, lovable, and I lived for beach period.  I can remember being a little too loud during rest hour and having to sit outside by a tree because my cabin wouldn’t stop giggling.  I can remember running around camp singing songs in my underwear.  Dipping in the morning used to be torture because of the 100 some odd steps I would have to climb, but knowing that a warm sweatshirt was waiting in my trunk kept me going.  I can remember being scared out of my mind of Betty but knowing that I had to take canoeing so my brother and sister would not disown me.  I remember the one year that I didn’t get all seven beads and deciding that should never happen again.  I remember going on the Challenge for the first time and following these two girls so I could re-do all of the lashing they just finished because it was never tight enough.  I remember being a CT and working for my merit hat.  I remember crying at the beginning of school wishing I could go back into the woods where everything was simple and beautiful.  I remember making some of the best memories ever.  I remember gaining confidence and learning to love and cherish myself even if I didn’t feel loved and cherished at school.  I remember being pushed to the limit and going further.  I remember when I thought for the first time that camp has made the person I am today.  I remember sitting in my dorm room in December flipping through pictures of the summer on my computer and thinking I would give anything to be there right now.  I know that camp has and still is making lasting impressions on each person that steps foot on property.

I ask all of you this year to be like little children.  When times are hard and stressful, think about that camper who would randomly come up to you and give you a pure innocent hug just because you are the coolest person they have ever met, or go bounding in the water after a long game of soccer.  Keep in mind as Mrs. Eddy says, “…the world has need of you more as children than as men and women.”  Life is good!  So I am going to take my fanny pack, my jean jumpsuit, and my cowboy hat and continue on my journey kicking, and tripping through this year only to be counting down the days till I get to come back home.  Yes, camp is located in one of the most beautiful spots in the world, but the location is only the scenery to our play, it is the actors and characters which make this place come alive and then journey to new locations.  Where will you spread your uncontaminated love?