Being Genuine

I love my job.  I love that I get paid to think creatively and critically, paid to work through things with people who are wise and loving and willing to push me to think deeper.  I’ve been in the office this week, which might seem dull and boring, but when you get to work with brilliant minds it’s so much fun; when you are all working together to plan and be prepared for the summer, the energy is contagious.  Magic is happening. 

Part of what I’ve been thinking about lately is: what is camp culture?  What type of community do I want to be a part of this summer?  What is it that I want to embody, for myself and for the new counselors who will be arriving at camp here in about a week?  This is what I came up with:

Being Genuine, A Manifesto:

What does being genuine look like? The genuine part is living open and honest and vulnerably.  It’s living into our contracts; knowing our contracts and sharing our contracts.  Genuine is loving the good in the suck, finding joy-filled moments in the midst of the storm, and acknowledging there is hard in the good times, too.  Genuine is owning our stories, it’s loving those stories and knowing that we are more than the sum of our stories.  Genuine is how we live 24/7 with people who challenge us, with kids who cuss us out and do the opposite of what we ask; kids who push our buttons just to watch how we react.  Genuine means letting ourselves be supported; it means asking for help, and letting others see that we are imperfect, too.  This is genuine.

We are all beautiful, broken people.  I can hate that, or I can love that; I choose to believe that.  Your story is not my story; I still feel those emotions.  I hear fear, I see lost and unwanted and confused written all over your face.  I feel my tears on your skin, or maybe they’re your tears on my skin.  Being genuine is letting this moment be.  Uncomfortable, awkward, whole-hearted, real.  Genuine is not embracing the suck, but embracing all of this, and seeing it as still beautiful.  It’s not survival mode of moment to moment, it’s looking up at the sun and smiling.  It’s looking up at the rain and smiling.  It’s looking into your eyes, looking into a mirror and smiling.  And not because we are beautiful and perfect, or because we are broken and pitiful, but because in our quest to do more, be more, to love harder, we are already there.  

We can invent ourselves and reinvent ourselves, and camp is a great place to do that, as long as the pieces you leave behind are the pieces you don’t need anymore.  Being genuine is letting these go.  Being genuine is walking bravely and with open arms into the unknown.  Being genuine is terrifying, being genuine invites change, being genuine means being open to whatever happens because no matter what happens, there is good – if only we are willing to, wanting to acknowledge its presence. 

Genuine is getting comfortable being uncomfortable.  It’s living openly- letting people see our strengths and our weaknesses; it’s living honestly- accepting that we are imperfect; it’s living vulnerably- seeing past walls and being seen without walls.  Genuine is loving with reckless abandon.  Genuine is a daily re-commitment.  Genuine is a choice.  Genuine is my choice.  Genuine. I hope you join me.