Our daughters are on staff at a summer camp. They participated themselves seven years ago, and now they are going full tilt to create a playful experience for other kids. The campers, who probably resist such a label, are at that awkward age of inflated self consciousness that settles like rainwater in a gully during early high school. Even those teens whose bodies work remarkably well are hounded by embarrassment, and negative self talk. 

Part of the strategy of the camp, I will so boldly assert, having never myself been a consultant, is to distract the kids from that hyperbolic self awareness. Don goofy costumes, immerse yourself in shimmying your limbs through a hula-hoop, roller skate faster than your vulnerable persona can catch up with. Dance, because whether or not you realize it, and chances are you don't, your earthly container is more supple than it will ever be again. 

One way to uncouple the cliques that can be divisive is to plop the kids in groups. The red group was thrust into solidarity while they raced across the gym with a fly swatter hitting a balloon. Well, meandered. The orange group gained cohesion as they marched two by two across campus, belting out songs. 

All of the teens and definitely the staff will go home and sleep. For a long time. Parents who are eager to hear the particulars of their child's week away will have to wait. Even those fourteen year olds whose energy source defies solar, hydronic, and fossil fuel need to crash eventually.

Distractions have their place, it seems. I recall the way my first baby eclipsed those concerns that used to take precedence. A clear kitchen counter, for one. Personal hygiene for another. Social life. I suspect that the diversion away from myself, to the near obsession with my perfect child was part of God's strategy all along.