Y-Camp, Yay, Y-Camp!

Lately, I have been thinking about Ravencliff.  Where I went to for three years during high school as a camp 'counselor'.  (I say in '' because I was actually a C-ILT, but I tell people that I was a counselor because it makes me feel better..).  Regardless, I have been thinking about it.  In certain circles, we, Ravencliffers, would refer to it as 'camp' and knew in the back of our minds that is was affiliated with the YMCA, but, ultimately, Ravencliff was just Ravencliff.  It was truly my first experience with spirituality and contemplating the divine.  In all the turmoil that I was going through during my high school years (at home mostly), there was always Ravencliff and I looked forward to it every summer.  Just closing my eyes, I can see it in my mind.  How the light falls on the creek in the afternoon, the coolness of chapel in the early mornings, the long trek up the hill to the cabins, the rustic beauty of the cabins, the rock where we all carved our names....

I don't often spend time thinking about it, Ravencliff comes to mind every 6 months for a fleeting thought, but ultimately its always there.

It sometimes seems odd to think of all the things I have done such as Ravencliff.  Just two weeks every summer for three years is a small amount of time but the influence it has had on my mind and heart is outlasting.  I always thought of it as sort of a little joke, you know, the meme: "That Ol' Ravencliff Magic"...but it is truly real.  Whenever I have needed it, that magic has been there, giving me the strength I need, even now, years after I have left.  I have always wanted to go back, but now I wonder, do I need to?  Is it too late? Am I too old?

I recently was watching youtube and somehow found some videos referring to Y-Camps, so I typed in Ravencliff, just to see.  There it was, kids, most likely high school counselors (as I had been), had taken their cellphones or their digital cameras and filmed campfire so then they could go and instantly upload it, perhaps.  It was funny to see and not in the least bit odd.  Having technology there at Ravencliff seemed a degradation of something holy; when I was at camp, there were no cellphones at all, the internet was just starting out and hadn't really taken off, and we didn't even have digital cameras.  No, we had the ol' fashioned film cameras, where you couldn't see how the photo came out until you took the three or four rolls of film  to the store where you forked over 10 dollars or so to get them developed, remember glossy and double print..which means no way of controlling how many pictures you could take, so make it a good one!

 I now know a little of why I find so many people, after 'camp, that I connect with and its because they, too, seem to have some of that 'camp feel' to me, even if they never set foot on the upper playing field (UPF), or smelled the chocolate factory, or went through the nightly ritual of the ragger's creed....So, I accept the love and connection of these new 'campers' in life, with hopes to instill some of that 'ol Ravencliff magic' into their lives!