Sunday: rest and reflections at Sprucelands.

Sunday at camp was another very restful day. It is also a reflective, thoughtful day. We did a late breakfast, cleaned up our cabins, got laundry together and then gathered for Challenge Group. The topic: It is okay to be me. It is okay to brag about my accomplishments as long as that bragging includes a balance where recognizing the accomplishments of others is also a possibility. It is okay to like the person I am.

I always love Challenge Group because I encourage new perspectives and leave the kids with a challenge for the week ahead. One exercise you might even attempt at home with a partner. Each of you do #1 first, then move on to #2 and finally #3. (1) Tell your partner three things you like about your partner, not surface things about hair or how they look, but things that relate to what you like about how they are as a person. (2) Share three things you like about yourself. (3) Share one thing you don't like about yourself.

Then check it out. What was the easiest to do? What was the hardest to do? And can you immediately recall the three things your partner liked about you? This exercise addresses all kinds of things. I'm always impressed by how few of us can remember the positives from our partner.

We rested again Sunday afternoon and then Sunday evening everyone enjoyed Vespers. This is generally a campfire led by our Counselors in Training (CITs). While this is an opportunity for them to join in planning a meaningful evening, it is also a wonderful campfire that pulls us together as a united camp prior to beginning a new, fresh week.

The CITs elected to engage the kids in a discussion about individuality. Complete with music and a story about The Ugly Duckling, they also encouraged and skillfully enabled a full camp dialogue that became both interesting and deep regarding the difficulties of being a unique individual inside the peer groups at school. There were comparisons between school and camp, openly sharing the beauty of total acceptance within the Sprucelands family atmosphere.

Some might say there isn't a lot going on during a Sunday. I might disagree. This is a thought provoking day. Often the kids sit around quietly and talk. This is the kind of day where kids sometimes make new decisions about the person they might want to be when they grow up or when they return to school in the fall. Away from the busy world out there, so swallowed by texting, TV, computers, video games and hectic schedules, this is a day for 'just being' and there is a beauty in that togetherness that I wish would last and last and last.

Comments always welcome.