Start Again
Back
I remember summer camp. It was a camp in New Hampshire run by a collection of churches under the same denomination. I remember the minister who had been appointed to counsel kids at the camp. His name was Denny Moon. We used to joke about being "Moonies." This was in the 1970s, when all the stories about Reverend Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church were big news.
I would end up leaving the church at the age of thirteen, having serious doubts about the nature of organized religion, but my parents insisted that I needed to spend a couple weeks during the summer away at camp. It wasn't a bad camp. It wasn't even really a religious camp. It was a lot of young teenaged boys and girls learning how to swim, doing arts and crafts, taking nature walks, playing sports, and all the usual summer camp fare. The thing was, back then I was extremely introverted and shy and being away from home tended to freak me out.
Tears, tears at the water's edge
Hey little sister, give us laughter instead
Tears for the teacher, from the eyes, from the soul
This restless spirit takes a long way back home
Like the wind, you are free
Just a whisper - I hear you, so talk to me
My relationship with the Reverend Denny Moon took on great meaning during those two weeks at camp. While other kids made fun of me and tormented me for my shyness, he took me under his wing. We talked about things. He even wanted to talk to me about my doubts about Christianity. He never judged me on what I said or thought, which was the main reason I had such troubles in church. Too many people were not open to alternative viewpoints. They spoke in dogma. Denny thanked me for having ideas and opinions.
Denny was fairly young. At the time he was younger than I am now with long hair and a bushy beard. He came to our church to be the youth minister the following year and then left. It troubled him when people, especially children, thought of faith as fact. He used to tell me that you needed to believe in something for it to really mean something. To call it fact and preach it as fact to others defeated the whole meaning of faith.
Oh, I believe, eye to eye
Say brother, sisters, see your brothers in the sky
Neighbour, neighbour, don't be so cold
It's only glory from the story I'm told
I helped him move when he took on his own church somewhere out in the wilderness. I had already left the church and was shunned by all those I knew except for Denny and two other people. Wally and Judy were married in those days. They were friends of my parents and understood me better than my parents did. Wally and Judy helped our church start a summer day camp and asked me to be a counselor. I thought they were crazy. You want your good little Christian kids to be exposed to the infidel? They said "yes."
I began to see past the dogma. I played volleyball with Wally and he would spike the ball over the net into my face with a smile. This wouldn't have been a very big deal except that I was taller than him and he was born without any hands or forearms. I started to see things in shades of gray. My own devotion to nothing being real unless it could be proven by science and their faith in Jesus and God were not concepts worth going to war over. We were people. We believed in different things. We were good people. Good people care about each other and we cared about people.
I believe, eye to eye
Say brothers, sister, see your brothers in the sky
Neighbour, neighbour, don't be so cold
It's so much glory from the story untold
There was a big bonfire on the top of a mountain we climbed the last night of summer camp. We were going to sleep out under the stars and return to camp to be picked up by our parents the next day. It was the last adventure and the only one that didn't make me nervous. I remember looking up at the night sky from my sleeping bag and thinking that perhaps anything was possible.
Years later, I tried to recapture that night when I was working as a counselor at the church day camp. There was a daily religious service inside the main building. I stayed outside and listened as I practiced with the volleyball. I was the only person outside in that little retreat by the lake. I hit the ball as hard as I could, trying to see how high into the sky I could get it. Then the kids and the adults and the other counselors came out of the building and Denny, who led the service, would smile at me and ask if he spoke loudly enough to be heard outside. I told him that he was loud enough. It was all he needed to hear.
Big fire, on top of the hill
A hopeless gesture, and last farewell
Tears from your mother, from the pits of her soul
Look at your father, see his blood run cold
Like the wind, you are free
Just a whisper - I hear you, so talk to me
When I was young I was very angry about people who believed in one "right way" of thinking about things. I was exposed to so much of it and came to believe that everyone was like that. I was tired of being told I was wrong and misguided. It was a big reason why I started dropping out of everything from church to after-school clubs. Denny changed all that for me. A minister who appreciated my lack of faith? Perhaps anything was possible.
I believe, eye to eye
Say brothers, sister, see your brothers in the sky
Neighbour, neighbour, don't be so cold
With so much glory from the story untold
There are many stories. There is not one single story on which all things rest. Denny Moon would talk to me about how so many people had different interpretations of the words of Jesus Christ. He believed I had my own interpretation. Denny knew I had spent more time reading The Holy Bible than any of my peers. He knew I had an inquisitive mind and that I wanted to understand. To him that was worth more than a room full of teenagers who accepted everything he told them.
I believe, eye to eye
Say brother, sisters, see your brothers in the sky
Neighbour, neighbour, don't be so cold
It's so much glory from the story untold
Forward
Lyrics borrowed without permission from Robert Plant
"I Believe" as recorded on the 1993 album Fate of Nations