Young Life: Creative Non-Fiction
When I was entering high school as a freshman, I had a Christian phase that ended abruptly. It started when I went on a trip with high schoolers from my church to West Virginia to help Habitat for Humanity, in the summer before my freshman year in high school. The moist mornings in this hilly and green landscape was paradise, and as the day went on, the dew rose and the heat pounded down upon us. We were there to build houses for people who would otherwise be unable to afford them. I always chose to go to the warehouse because I could not bare the sun and heat. Other teens from around the country were there too. I met a boy named Rob there and he wanted to be a pastor. He would sing acoustic versions of Some Fantastic by Bare Naked Ladies, as the cool summer night would come in like the tide. Thousands of fireflies would dazzle the scenery. One of those nights, when I could hear acoustic guitar in the distance, I decided that I wanted to catch a firefly. I used a giant plastic container shaped like a bear that once contained animal crackers and I caught one… It was magical.
On the car ride back from the trip to West Virginia, I heard people in my van talking about Young Life, a Christian Youth Organization around Syracuse. When I got back to New York, I called some contact of Young Life and left a message. After school started in the fall, they got back to me. They had clubs, which were gatherings with music and references to the Bible. I didn’t know anyone who went but I showed up alone at some random girls’ house for club. I was dropped off by my mom and greeted by warm, inviting smiles. It seemed like the outcasts and jocks from my school came together for this event. Everyone was outside talking and playing basketball. I recognized some people from the high school but I had only been there a few days. No one from my grade was present. In the gathering of 30 or 40 students, a few adults are deemed Leaders. One of the leaders for the DeWitt section was Nate, another was Tammy. They are married. Nate has brown hair with a trace of gray; his hair is coarse and short. Tammy has blonde hair that reflected the fluorescent lights in the basement. She had bangs and wore glasses. The first night I met them it felt like I had known them for years. In club, we sat in this girls’ basement for about an hour and a half. There was acoustic music, and sing-a-longs with the words projected onto a sheet hanging from the ceiling. We sang songs like Free Falling by Tom Petty and Wonder Wall by Oasis. It wasn’t like people would mumble them either, people would actually sing out loud with no shame, clap, and get really into each song. The weeks after that I invited my friends, Adam and Alex, twins from my grade. They enjoyed Young Life as much as I did. We were moved by the sermons and acceptance of our peers. After club every week, everyone would ride over to Mario and Salvos, a pizza shop in a plaza nearby which also had ice cream nearby. Mario and Salvos had dark reflective tables and red neon lighting that reflected off them. We would sit around the tables in Mario and Salvos and talk until 9:30 or 10, when they were supposed to close around 9:00pm on weeknights. I considered these people my best of friends. We would never hang out on the weekend, but during the week, we were like siblings. I was one of the few lucky freshmen to get a ride to school by seniors in high school.
We had only been going to club for a couple months when there was a trip to Saranac Lake. There was a whole Young Life camp at Saranac Lake with huge cabins made of dark wood and yellow lighting. Two buses took us from a run down mall out of town to the camp. Buses from other areas took kids from around the county. Before Adam, Alex, and I left to go to Saranac Lake, one of our friends burned us a CD with satanic-sounding music, but I liked it, even if it was a joke. When we arrived at camp, they insisted on taking our CD players and music. Their reasoning for taking our music away was that they could distract a religious experience. I got over that and learned how to play Saranac Ball, which is played on a pool table. There are four players and you shoot pool balls by hand to get other peoples balls in. We met people from other Young Life groups around the county by playing these pool hall games.
I woke up early at Saranac Lake because I was nervous or excited. I took my instant camera outside to find a trace of snow and frost covering the landscape. I stepped out into the cold with pajama pants and a sweatshirt on. I could see my breath, as I walked across the frost-covered deck. The snow in the woods surrounding the cabin was untouched except for a couple prints of little creatures. The sun came in at an angle from across the lake, which was directly in front of me, behind the trees and some large rocks. I made my way to the water, taking a few pictures on the way. The water was dark blue, almost black and calm, not yet frozen. Mist rose from the water. Everything around me was silent, and my hands were freezing.
Back in DeWitt, I got an e-mail from a girl named Liz who went to my school and was in Young Life. She was looking for someone to do her community service project with her. She planned to volunteer at her church and I told her that I would accompany her. We became good friends. The church where we volunteered was in the Valley where the kids are mostly black. The church provided an after-school type care on Tuesday afternoons. They provided snacks, did arts and crafts, and taught the kids about the Bible.
On Friday mornings, Liz picked me up before school in her gray Volvo and brought me to Campaigners in one of two houses close to school. Breakfast was served. It was a more intense Bible-study club. Many seniors only went to school on Fridays for Campaigners. We talked about stories of the Bible and prayed. Then we would hurry to school. At one point, we made a list of people who we wanted to save from going to hell and bring closer to Jesus. Most of the people on the list were stoners, atheists, or Jewish. I made a few contributions to the list.
The summer after my freshman year, I went for a week to Lake Champlain for Young Life camp. By this time, Adam had come out of the closet to his close friends, including myself. Adam and I had always been close and something like him being gay did not effect me at all. If anything, he and I got closer after he told me. Adam had a crush on Nick who openly admitted that he had homosexual feelings, at one point. Nick was the most flamboyant kid who went to Young Life. Adam took a couple people from Young Life aside, including Nick, one night while we were at camp and told them that he was gay. During that week, there was club everyday and there were other activities like a ropes course. The blind girl, Helen, was even there and Liz was her ‘caretaker’ because she needed to be babysat. Liz got to go for free for this reason. Helen required a lot of attention and came off as annoying most of the time. Liz was saving for college in the fall and wouldn’t have gone on the trip if she didn‘t get to go for free. Liz, Adam, Alex, and I would hang out a lot, and I was glad that Liz was able to come. Liz taught me how to make a necklace out of a piece of a bandana; I put a bead on it too.
The second to last day at Lake Champion, there was a presentation about religions and proving that Christianity was best, or something to that respect. I was interested, so I went by myself. The presentation was in a stadium-seating auditorium. The white lights were all focused on the stage where Nate was standing. Nate discussed the major religions: Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity. Muslims are terrorists, Buddhist monks rape virgins, and Hindus believe statues come to life. I called him a liar under my breath. I didn’t explain myself to the people sitting around me. One of his reasons for being Christian was because time was based on it. At the end, everyone in the presentation clapped. Everyone met with their leader during the week to discuss questions that they might have about religion. I had a meeting with Tammy. I asked her about the Buddhist monk thing, which I highly doubted but I wasn’t sure. She re-assured me that it was true and told me that I would find an abundance of occurrences if I looked it up on the internet. My second question was about homosexuals, with Adam in mind. She explained to me that homosexuals are going to hell. I looked her in the eye, and told her that I would rather go to hell with them. I was close to tearing up. I rushed to Adam and Alex and told them what I had discussed.
The second I got back from camp, I looked up the thing about Buddhist monks on the internet. There was not a thing mentioning it. Tammy and Nate had lied to everyone who was listening that day. If I see them in the grocery store, I’ll look right by them. I only went to club a couple times after that. Looking back on it, I felt brainwashed for an entire year. The people from Young Life only liked me because I added one more person to their club. After I stopped going, I stopped getting smiles in the hall at school, and they were replaced with glares. Adam, Alex, and I never felt comfortable at club again.