Members of our group had spotted images of Jesus and the
like in inanimate objects a number of times on this trip. A cloud over Mt. Arbel that looked like a
face…it must be the face it
Jesus. I agreed that it could have been
a face, but if it was it looked like Elvis…or Jesus if he had a pompadour.
Then there were the mineral deposits in the Sacred Pit at
St. Peter in Gallicantu, the pit where Jesus had been held captive; the
deposits looked like a cross. Our tour
guide ran his fingers over the very spot as had every other tour guide. Ever see a wall next to a set of stairs in a
house with children? Mystery solved.
Today, it was not only the profile of Jesus in a rocky
outcrop, but a Jesus with a crown of thorns no less. Even more amazing was that the profile was
spotted out of a bus window while we were at highway speed. Now that’s the power of imagination!
It reminds me of something similar from my childhood. My parents had shipped me and my younger
brother David off to a summer camp in cottage country. “Teopoli” was run by a group of Nuns and
prayer was a part of the daily routine.
I had a lot of great experiences there; the typical camp stuff like
swimming, fishing, campfires and talent shows.
It was also the first time I made out with a girl (not that I’ve made
out with a guy…but you know what I mean…I hope). Her name was Anna, but the memory is
foggy about her last name. I do remember that I was really upset the next summer when she told me she didn’t
like me anymore. I also remember that
she was from Willowdale which seemed like it was a world away back then, and it
was. Everything was far away in the pre-interweb days.
Teopoli was also the place where someone came out to me as gay for the first time in my life. Rob…I even
remember his last name because I ended up going to high school with his older brother
who was in his final year as I entered the ninth grade. Rob was soft spoken and sensitive and had
clearly been the object of a lot of taunting and ridicule. He gave me girl advice about Anna and
said the type of things that no guy our age would have said. But the kicker for me was when Rob performed what
I think was a sign language version of Bette Midler’s “The Rose” for our talent
show. Hell, it could have been an
attempt at vogue-ing before Madonna made it popular, but whatever it was, it
was completely and totally out of the ordinary.
For my part, I sang “Everybody wants to rule the world” by
Tears for Fears. Not exactly the
manliest of songs either, but it was popular at the time and it was the only
thing that my drummer (who played with drumsticks and a chair) knew how to
play…poorly.
In the middle of our second week at camp, Rob came up to me visibly upset and asked me if we could talk away from the group. We went around the side of the chapel and in tears, Rob told me that he was gay. I gave him a hug and told him that it didn’t make any difference to me and didn’t change anything about our friendship. It took incredible courage for Rob to reveal this at such a young age, and perhaps expose himself to further ridicule. It was the kind of moment that has stuck with me forever.
Despite the youthful energy and sense of wonderment that
comes from discovery, Teopoli was a place of cruelty too. On the adjoining farm there was a younger
man, likely in his thirties, who had some type of mental delay. When the sisters and our counselors weren’t
around we would play “confusion” with him and all talk to him at the same
time. The audio assault was too much for
him to handle and he would hold his hands to his ears and run away. We thought it was hilarious, but it was
unspeakably cruel. It was the type of
thing that should earn a young boy an automatic beating. And we would have received that kind of
discipline had my parents ever found out.
But just like Vegas, what happens at camp stays at camp…until now. I offer my heartfelt confession to you.
Which brings me back to the original topic…imagery. On the way back from camp we passed a certain
spot on the highway. One of the sisters
told everyone to look at a dead tree by the side of the highway. At just the right angle it would look like
Jesus on the cross and it actually did.
For years afterwards I would try and find the same tree, but infrequent
trips North and a completely vague recollection of the tree’s location
conspired against finding it; I never succeeded.
Imagery: brief, fleeting and powerful
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