Big Old Range of Emotions

Whew! Yesterday was a big, full day. As I had mentioned before, I was excited to see the movie, "Camp Out", starring ME (well, and some other people). My excitement was dampered quite a bit by the death of my friend, Robin. Her funeral was Saturday morning, just hours before getting to see the movie.

First, the funeral. I've already given my little memorial for Robin. The funeral was very carefully orchestrated to include all aspects of her life. There was a lot of music and drumming. Robin was a conga player, so the Youth Encounter alumni did a lot of singing and drumming. They sang songs that had a lot of personal meaning for me, often because I sang them while I was on team. There was singing for 30 minutes before the actual funeral. The church choir sang, and Youth Encounter alumni sang. Then a small group sang "The Wood Song" by the Indigo Girls. That was where I lost it (for the first time). The recessional was "We Are Marching in the Light of God". Not your typical closing hymn for a funeral. But several people brought their own drums and played along. It turned into a drum circle. It was BEAUTIFUL!

Following the funeral, I got to talk with a few people, but I had to hurry out to get things set up for our private showing of the movie. I was already late. I won't go into detail about the setting up, or the requests of the production company. I'll just get to the good stuff.

The movie is WONDERFUL! It is very funny and touching. I mentioned above that it stars me. That's not quite true. It really follows the kids who come to the camp. They are wonderfully articulate about how they feel about the Christian Chrurch. It's a good film for anyone who wants to do reconciliation work between spirituality and sexuality. I said I wouldn't recommend the movie until I'd seen it. Well, I've seen it, so go and see it.

Actually, this next weekend, the film is making its premiere at the Melbourne Queer Film Festival. If you are in Australia (well, the Melbourne area), go and see it. For those of you in the US, we know that it is at the Cleveland Film Festival March 23-24. We really want it to show at other places, so please make sure theatres are filled. I'm sure I'll be making plugs for the film whenever I know where it is.

For those of you who are interested, information about The Naming Project is to the right, under LINKS. The web site for Camp Out is here. I'm sure that soon, J will have something to say about the movie as well. J is the main adult who narrates much of the film. For the most part, you will see me playing the guitar (rather poorly) by a fire.