This morning after breakfast, I was told to go to the Underground to watch two videos, “Dirty Little Secret” by the All American Rejects and “World on Fire” by Sarah McLachlan. It was fairly eye-opening. I always thought the All American Rejects were just a whiiine-ey boy band singing about sleeping with someone or cheating on their girlfriends. And though that’s mentioned, it’s not the whole message. Nothing ever is. Everywhere there is an allusion, a code, a secret to be found. Songs about heartbreak aren’t just songs, they are the pain. A song about secrets isn’t just a song, it’s a secret unto itself showing the desire to be able to anonymously announce what is on your mind, or written in your heart. It showed that many of the things we fear are the same as those of the person sitting next to us. We all fear failure because it is inevitable. We fear disappointing our parents because we all have a deep desire to make them proud. The biggest secret of all is that none of us are alone.
After a long, wonderful spiritual day, we went to yet another magnificent worship and were ushered to a hall for some type of performance. I assumed it would be some guy with a guitar singing “Kumbaya”. When I heard he was some type of magician, I was even more skeptical. However as I sat in the audience I was quickly swept up in his stage presence, charm, and humor. It’s not everyday you see a full grown man playing Dance Dance Revolution, not to mention a full grown man memorizing a song on expert well enough to juggle pins at the same time. Even more seldom seen is a full grown man on a 6-foot unicycle juggling milk, a tea cup, and a dagger. All in all it was a fascinating show that was totally captivating for audiences of all ages. Birthday party of the year anyone? Also immediately after the show, every third kid had a chinese yoyo. You couldn’t walk more than a minute without sidestepping a flying cone type thing. Everyone was buzzing with excitement and the energy was flying through the air nearly as quickly as a bag of milk.
The one problem with summer and vacations is you can never remember what day is what. So I think I am writing this under my Wednesday account … when it was actually on Tuesday. So I guess that can mean one of two things: I’m crazy and can’t remember my name not to mention the date. Or the memory is so vivid it feels like yesterday … Wait , it was. Well option three is that I’m still psyched about it. Not psyc-O, psych-ED.
What actually happened today during recreation was as follows. Our groups were divided into synods and we (being from Southwestern Ontario) were brought into a large lecture hall. Now there are not normally very exciting things to do in lecture halls, but after throwing candy at us, we were content to eat and listen to two speakers from our area who where both inspirational and well-spoken. All my peers thoroughly enjoyed the event and claimed that they wouldn’t have traded it for the party the east coast was having. Since this is a Christian retreat, I wont lie and say I agree. Though it was wonderful, I definitely could have gone for some crazy Newfoundland spirit.
Another day of fun, worship, community, laughter and love here at CY09.
