25 Years: Looking Back One More Time
We have been celebrating CAMP Rehoboth’s 25th Anniversary all year long. That celebration will culminate October 9-11 at our big 25th Anniversary Silverbration Weekend. Though I confess I’m about over all the “looking back” we’ve been doing all year long, I’m going to do it one more time.
My premise here is that the history of CAMP Rehoboth is woven throughout the pages of Letters. I think these words of mine say what I want to say about CAMP Rehoboth.
September 19, 1997 - Jubilation in the House
It is no accident that Sundance has become “the rainbow party.” The rainbow is our symbol and it speaks to us about the value of every life. If one color is missing from the rainbow it breaks the order and disrupts the flow of color to color. Maybe it’s cliché, but I believe in the rainbow. I believe in the diversity for which it stands. This year’s Sundance theme was Rainbow Revival. On that happy Sundance Sunday night…a friend suddenly appeared beside me on the dance floor. “It’s happy,” he exclaimed with his arms in the air, “I knew it would be happy,” and he danced off into the night. “Jump shout hallelujah jubilation in the house,” said the Sundance invitation.
May 21, 1999 - Summer Love 1999
CAMP Rehoboth grew out of the summer. It grew out of the hearts of people who met in this special place and understood that here was fertile ground, here was a good place for positive, affirming creativity, here was a place we could call home. Here was a place where the vision of the rainbow could be nurtured and loved. Indeed we do live in tumultuous times, in times of change. Homophobia is rampant throughout our society, and the closet culture that it breeds is an open wound within the body of humanity. CAMP Rehoboth grew out of a desire to heal that wound—to “Create A More Positive” world.
May 5, 2000 - The Beat Goes On
It takes optimism and a positive attitude to combat the hatred and homophobia that still exists around us. You cannot participate in something like the March on Washington without seeing the hateful banners and signs of our enemies. What kind of sickness does it take to hold up a big sign that reads, “Don’t believe in hell? Ask Matt.” And yet, in some ways the extreme blatant homophobia of protesters such as this is easier to take than the insidious prejudice that infiltrates our culture and our mainstream churches and our schools. Equality begins within our families and our communities. It begins as we come out again and again on deeper and deeper levels. It begins as we use all our gifts and talents to find the truth and share it with one another. It begins in the love and the respect we share with not just our gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgendered brothers and sisters but with our straight ones of all different colors, and faiths, and nationalities.
June 1, 2001 - Patterns of Love
CAMP Rehoboth was created to be an organization that creates a more positive world. That means that from the beginning we have been working to change the patterns that make up the world around us. In my mind’s eye I see countless little minus signs being changed to plus signs. In a way it’s a lot like the Human Genome Project that’s been identifying the markers on human DNA. There is great hope in the medical and scientific communities that this research will make it possible to find the patterns of particular diseases and make the changes necessary to bring about their healing. In an odd kind of way that’s what CAMP Rehoboth, and other organizations like it, have been trying to do all these years, to change the patterns of fear and mistrust against LGBT people, to bring about a collective human healing, to find ways of changing fear into love.
February 1, 2002 - New Home
For much of the last two years, the pages of Letters have been filled with plans, ideas, dreams, and visions for creating The CAMP Rehoboth Community Center. Many people throughout our community have joined together to support the development of the Center. This winter we are taking the next big step and purchasing the property where CAMP Rehoboth has always been, at 39 Baltimore Avenue in downtown Rehoboth…. That we have progressed so fast in our efforts to make The Community Center a reality, is a tribute to this great community in which we live. There is a need and there are those willing to step up and see that the need is met. All of us at CAMP Rehoboth are thrilled at the prospect of being able to “stay at home” on Baltimore Avenue. It’s where CAMP Rehoboth belongs. It’s where visitors know where to find us. It’s where we can be our most effective as an organization. It is indeed, our home, and the best place for us to live up to our vision of being “the heart of the community.”
October 17, 2003 - CAMP Matters – Living a New Vision
To live up to our new vision of being the heart of the community means providing a safe place where everyone feels welcome. It means that we must be open to new ideas, new people, and to the autonomy of groups that use the Community Center or the services available through CAMP Rehoboth. Sometimes it means letting go. Sometimes it means embracing people and ideas very different from our own.
May 21, 2004 - CAMP Matters – HeART at Work
Looking at the images of HeARTwork and reading the notes supplied by the participating artists, I can’t help but think about all the heart work that needs to take place in the world today. That includes the individual work of our own hearts and souls, as well as efforts to reach across the divides of country, creed, race, age, gender, and sexual orientation. This little show reminds me that we have the creative power to make a difference in the world around us—one heartbeat at a time—and that the true art of our lives involves far more than pigment, brush, and canvas.
June 3, 2005 - CAMP Matters – Growing Up
Over the last 15 years the organization has moved through various stages of development—much as a child grows to adulthood. In a way, the original vision of CAMP Rehoboth is like human DNA, containing all the information a body needs in order to grow up. All that remains is the time to grow up in—the time to fully become all that we are capable of being…. I’ve felt for a long time that CAMP Rehoboth was some kind of training ground—years ago we even had “Boot CAMP” t-shirts made—and that it was preparing us to deal with the world around us in new and different ways. Maybe it’s simply teaching us how to grow up and take creative responsibility for the world around us—for the community in which we live.
May 19, 2006 - CAMP Matters – The Power of Love
Back in the early 90s our dinner conversation turned to a philosophical discussion of love. A friend, who not long after passed away from AIDS, said something about not being able to love people he didn’t like and I responded that I didn’t believe that love had much to do with “like.” I have remembered that conversation and continued to think about it for many years now. Loving those we like and agree with is easy. Finding ways to love those who are different from us, who are difficult, who cause us pain, and who frighten us is another matter altogether…. The real power of love comes from its ability to transcend our individual likes and dislikes, our fears (real or imagined), and our instinctive distrust of that which is different, unknown, strange, or, for that matter...queer.
In the last five years, life for LGBT people has changed rapidly. This was written in 2010:
November 19, 2010 - CAMP Matters – Hello and Goodbye
CAMP Rehoboth turns 21 in 2011—does that mean we are officially grown up? No, not anymore than any 21 year old is grown up. We’re still learning, still working to discover the best way to navigate through a world where bullies use gay as a battering ram; relationship equality is non-existent except in a few isolated pockets around the country; and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is still the order of the day for our military brothers and sisters.
April 8, 2011 - CAMP Matters – Looking Back to the Future
Looking at our history reminds us who we are as an organization. Remembering our core philosophy will help us to grow into our future. May there always be “room for all.”
Murray Archibald, CAMP Co-founder and President of the Board of Directors of CAMP Rehoboth, is an artist in Rehoboth Beach. Photo: Detail, Murray Archibald’s 2002 HeART of the Community painting.