I spent almost every summer while in college as a camp counselor at Imago Dei, an Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) camp in Wisconsin. Youth ministry had become my passion and purpose, one so personally fulfilling that I justified the fact that I was attempting to love God and others without loving myself. A truly distorted understanding of love.
The Wisconsin terrain was just as beautiful as Owasippe, with large, green forests, and clear, blue, freshwater lakes, punctuated with marshes and meadows. Gazing up at the stars in the Wisconsin summer night sky, I could have been in Michigan. Proceeding farther north, the landscape gives way to hills and rocky crags sculpted during the last glacial retreat. These stony sculptures, earthen headstones that mark the death of an ancient silvery sheet of ice, a grave covered with a million evergreens.
This piney sea continues north to Lake Superior, into Canada, forest after forest of naked Christmas trees not yet dressed in their celebratory seasonal garb. Even amidst this solitude of silence, you’re aware life surrounds you—eagles above, woodchucks below, and deer all around.
Imago Dei was similar to Owasippe. Campers arrived mid-Sunday afternoon, after lunch but before dinner. The following Saturday morning after breakfast, we returned our campers to the adults responsible for them the remaining fifty-one weeks of the year.
While Minnesota boasts of ten thousand lakes, Wisconsin quietly appreciates fifteen thousand lakes. Imago Dei shared a small section of shoreline on Long Lake in Belle Plaine. The camp’s rustic town center was anchored by the main lodge, a quintessential North Woods building with long walls of pine logs and a large stone fireplace, and wrapped with windows on all sides to invite the outside inside. The large kitchen to the side was the purview of Bonnie, the camp cook who seasoned her meals with smiles.
The main lodge was where we ate and held our all-camp gatherings. We celebrated the conclusion of every week with an all-camp, coed Friday night dance as opposed to the fiery displays of combustion that enthralled the all-boy campfire at Owasippe—audience-appropriate closing ceremonies for each camp.
I was assigned to the junior high and high school kids. This came as a relief to my colleagues whose temperaments were better suited to children, and a relief to me whose temperament was better suited to adolescents. With every new week, there was always one kid who told me, “I don’t believe in God,” and my response was always the same. Devoid of any shock, surprise, or judgment in my voice, I responded matter-of-factly: “Okay, let’s discuss during our week together and you can share with me why.” Their response was often a startled, mumbled, “Oh, okay.”
It’s not that I doubted or disrespected their sincerity. Just the opposite. I knew too well what it meant to struggle with faith. My own secret continued to enclose my heart and erode my relationship with God. I understood their crisis of faith; I got it. I don’t think any teenager left Imago Dei an atheist—maybe agnostic—but at least they were open to the joyous possibilities that happen with faith. I was the one lacking faith.
While I found both pleasure and purpose in my daily ministry at Imago Dei, I always looked forward to our Friday night dances in the main lodge. The wall of windows were always open, and the sweaty smell of youth mixed with the summer scents of Wisconsin. The sweet and exuberant aroma of our young lives wafted through nature’s fragrant air. Our dances were animated acts in celebration of community. Counselors and kids moved rhythmically together, in pairs and in groups. It was never about sexuality, only the sensuality one feels being young and alive.
In the summer of 1989, my last summer, I momentarily celebrated my entire Imago Dei, escaping for a brief moment the shame of my secret. I had an impermanent glimpse of living a life of love, grace, and purpose when one of my fellow counselors (a.k.a. camp DJ) played Erasure’s “A Little Respect.” This was one of my people’s bands that I was introduced to at Lakeland and whose song was a Top 40 hit. Its lyrics were about a gay man pleading for reconciliation with the man he loves.
What religion or reason
Could drive a man to forsake his lover?
Oh baby, please, give a little respect to me¹
In this brief, joyous musical moment lasting 210 seconds, I was at peace with God, myself, and my world. I momentarily lived a life of integrity and a fulfilled purpose. God’s love was all around, and I could feel it in my hidden heart. I felt so blissful; even if it had been stormy, I would have been singing and dancing in the rain.
But this freedom quickly passed. The song ended. My secret life returned as quickly as it had left only one song earlier. I was a lion afraid of its own shadow, afraid to trust in God.
I became very close with some of my colleagues, and as we moved further into our twenties, I eventually shared with some that I was gay. I loved these people, and I felt their love in return. We all respected the image of God within everyone. Even now, after the ravages of age and the abuse to my body, I recall most of their names and faces: Mike, Lori, two Nancys, two Tims, Sarah and Sara, Al, Dave and David, Brian, Maggie, Kayla, Becky, Kevin, Rebecca, Angie, and, of course, Kristen. Other names are missing from my memory but memorialized within my heart.
I loved being a camp counselor and I was really good at it, but I knew a vocation in youth ministry would be extremely challenging to pursue and near difficult to attain as an openly gay man in 1980s America. I also knew I could no longer live life in my closet. Its cost was overwhelming me, and the Devil was seeking my light.
Peace. God loves you.
This story is an excerpt from Finding God in Vegas: A Gen X Spiritual Awakening, available on Amazon and across all platforms in print or electronic.
¹“A Little Respect.” Vince Clarke and Andy Bell. 1988. Sung by Erasure. Mute Records.