Building our spiritual home and living in the external world

Chase Shields

Our greatest service to young people is to teach them to be “good architects of their internal homes,” emphasized Mark Andrus, Bishop of California, at the recent Episcopal Camps and Conference Centers’ annual conference. In the spirit of Lenten reflection, therefore, let’s look at how Camp Cross helps youth develop internal homes to help them live out their spiritual life in the world.

What characterizes a good internal home? In “Raising Resilient Children,” by Robert Brooks and Sam Goldstein, the ability to perceive, communicate and understand emotion (often called emotional intelligence), the ability to overcome uncertainty and failure (be resilient), and having a sense of intrinsic self worth are all essential characteristics of such a place.

This is not to say an internal home is without God. For a Christian, charity with others, faith, and understanding God’s unconditional love are equivalents of the above concepts, and although we might be more comfortable with their form because they are Christian, in function there is often little difference.

Langdon Gilkey, in “Naming the Whirlwind: The Renewal of God-Language,” explains that because our understanding of the world around us is developed primarily with secular language and concepts (i.e. science, psychology, pop culture, high school social scenes), the words used for religious concepts have lost their spiritual meaning. We have lost our ability to approach the world on a truly spiritual level because we no longer understand the deeper meaning of the words and concepts used to communicate it. Without an understanding of the spiritual meaning in words and concepts, youth can hardly be expected to passionately live them out.

How then can youth build an internal home with spiritual depth if the words and concepts with which they define the world have none? One way in this diocese is Camp Cross. Camp Cross reconnects the words and experiences of everyday life with their spiritual meanings. As Evita Krislock often said, Camp Cross is a thin place, a place where the distance to spiritual meaning is more easily bridged and a place where the will of the Sprit is more easily heard. This thinness, living closely with the spiritual, animates everyday things like friendships, sitting quietly, and even labor with a new joy and depth. This animation, supported by friends, counselors and teachers, makes Camp an experiential learning center for the God-Language, one not mirrored in campers’ largely secular lives.

The difference between secular language and God-Language is revealed clearly when campers share that a friend from school and a friend from Camp Cross are different; they are both friends but one friendship is imbued with spiritual depth, even if not explicitly communicated. The difference is so pronounced in high school that many youth confess to being reluctant to bring new friends to Camp Cross because “they won’t understand.” The youth understand that the God-Language of Camp is substantively different from the language used in secular relationships.

This reluctance is an apt reminder that our internal homes should not be constructed in secret, hidden from the secular world. They should be open, something to be lived into out in the world. It is essential to share our camp experience. As older campers become counselors, the spiritually grounded internal home they’ve built is shared with a new generation. It also happens when in the secular world we teach the God-Language meanings of words in the manner of St. Francis, using words only if absolutely necessary.

This is the power of God-Language. Our internal homes become calls to action through their connection to the spiritual: “perceiving and understanding emotion” becomes living with Christ-like compassion; “overcoming uncertainty and failure” becomes living faithfully through all life’s trials, and “intrinsic self worth” becomes finding the spirit’s will for you and living it out.

And as for a Lenten resolution, the Camp theme this year, “Becoming Bread for the World,” is the perfect chance for us to help campers live externally, in the deep and spiritual internal home they’ve built, by giving them confidence to be authentic and open Christians.