Wonderful, Glorious, Amazing!
This Labor Day weekend will be the 24th time we have danced the Sundance here in Rehoboth Beach, and it is our biggest event of the year. This year’s Sundance theme is The Wonderful, Glorious, Amazing Light of the Watercolor Rainbow, and was inspired by a song that DJ Joe Gauthreaux played at last year’s Love. I don’t even know the name of the song, but the refrain has stuck with me all year long: “…his love is wonderful, glorious, amazing,” that’s all I remember.
When I searched for the phrase “wonderful, glorious, amazing” I was surprised to find over 1,100 references to it. Just for fun, here are a few of them:
• I had a fantabulous, grandtastic, wonderful, glorious, amazing time with you at forklift!!!! Let’s hang out soon!! Love you sis!
• This theatrical experience is wonderful, glorious, amazing…Hair features book and lyrics by Gerome Ragni and James Rado.
• I find home in me—in my wonderful, glorious, amazing, awe-inspiring connection to All That Is.
• The wonderful, glorious, amazing Karen of Bitter-Sweet is the organizer of this event.
• I also love this book for the excessive use of wonderful, glorious, amazing adjectives in the title.
• Wonderful. Glorious. Amazing. Fantastic. Awesome. Marvelous. Incredible. Fabulous. Beautiful. Delightful. Absolutely terrific. Take your pick.
• Also, a big thank you to Aunt Frankie and Rhonda for the wonderful, glorious, amazing care package that I received this week. I did a happy dance!
• I have found a wonderful, glorious, amazing product that literally causes those fine lines to disappear within a matter of minutes, I kid you not!
• So thanks to our Donor family and our Savior my little Dax man celebrates two years of wonderful, glorious, amazing life!!!! I love you little man!
• Hindsight! Sometimes it is a wonderful glorious amazing thing, not because you realize how utterly stupid and blind you have been but because you finally have it and the sheer fact that you do have it means the horrible ugly rotten thing you were going through is behind you and in the past.
• What wonderful, glorious, amazing, fabulous, magnificent, outstanding, sensational, or terrific parts did I miss? Spread the news!
There were so many more references online I could have filled this whole column, and I have to confess that it made me joyful to read them. Somehow they reminded me that we need to be exuberant and not let the stresses we all face every single day get us down.
I don’t know if I’ve ever found inspiration in a search engine before. Oh sure, in the final result of the search we have all stumbled upon great words of wisdom, but not all piled up in the little nuggets of information that Google assembles as we need them.
My guess is that it’s these three little words themselves—wonderful, glorious, amazing. Alone, each one provides a positive descriptive expression for the good things in life. Together, well, they just make me happy.
At the heart of CAMP Rehoboth is the acronym that makes up the word CAMP—Create A More Positive. In its simplest form, that was the first goal of CAMP Rehoboth: to create positive change in the world around us. Over the past 21 years, we’ve used many phrases to describe the work of CAMP Rehoboth, including: the heart of the community, room for all, and all the words that make up our mission and purpose (printed on page two in every issue of this magazine), but creating a more positive world remains one of the core tenets of our organization.
Creating positive change can take many forms. We do it in our community by developing an attitude of respect and openness with one another. We do it when we stand up for equality in all things. We do it when we provide HIV education and distribute condoms. We do it when we provide counseling to those who are bullied or rejected by their families and neighbors. We do it when we provide a beautiful place of safety and welcome in our Community Center and courtyard. We do it in the words we speak through this magazine and on our website.
Oh yes, the words of this year’s Sundance theme make me happy because they remind me of the great—no, the wonderful, glorious, amazing—things that have grown out of the combined efforts of so many people here in this little place called Rehoboth Beach.
There is one more element in this year’s Sundance theme—the watercolor rainbow. In thinking back over the last 21 years of CAMP Rehoboth, watercolor seems the perfect medium to convey the layers and layers of time and love that have gone into creating this organization. If we look closely at our “misty water-colored mem’ries” they are filled with the faces of hundreds of donors, volunteers, leaders, supporters, friends and family.
I hope everybody comes out for Sundance this year. Something happens when we all gather on the dance floor; something happens when we come together to celebrate. Sundance happens because so many people make it happen. Please consider becoming a Sponsor, a Supporter, or a Host of this year’s Sundance 2011: The Wonderful, Glorious, Amazing, Light of the Watercolor Rainbow.
Murray Archibald, Founder and President of the Board of Directors of CAMP Rehoboth, is an artist in Rehoboth Beach.