Gah.

I had this amazing dream last night in which something truly wonderful and thrilling happened that I couldn't wait to get online and share with you all, or at least as many people as seemed prudent at short notice.

Then, of course, I woke up, and it hadn't happened. So I have nothing to share.

*gloom*

On an amusing note, however, I started out the dream as melissa_tlc, wearing a black velour tracksuit (don't worry, Mellie, it was very nicely tailored and you looked fab) and climbing a steep rocky slope with impossible ease. When I/Mellie reached the top we felt great and were altogether proud of ourselves.

I have been fictional characters in a dream before, but never a Real Person I've actually met in RL. I have no idea what this means. But it didn't last long in any case, because I spent much of the rest of the dream trying frantically to reach Mellie on AIM, which I suspect wouldn't have been necessary if we were still the same person.

Oh, and lizbee, I dreamed about hanging out with you a couple of nights ago too. Pity I can't remember any of it.

About Last Week...

So, camp. This is the third year we've been to the same place, but the first that we've attended Family Camp A (i.e. the first week of August) instead of Family Camp C (at the end of the month). We discovered, to our surprise and pleasure, that A is a lot smaller and cozier -- there were only 80 people registered for our week, as opposed to 180 for C this year. That meant more room in the pool, a better chance to get to know our fellow campers, and a generally more relaxed approach to the whole thing.

Nicholas attended the kids' program for the first time this year, and seems to have really enjoyed himself making various crafts and learning about the armor of God. Simon seemed to be quite happy in the nursery for the first few days, but then was traumatized by seeing part of Larry-Boy and the Fib from Outer Space and tearfully refused to go back for the rest of the week. (As I recall, Nicholas was terrified of the Fib as well. One of these days I really must watch the video for myself and figure out why.)

For the adults, the speaker in the mornings and evenings was Dr. Bill McRae. I'd never heard him speak before, but he was very good -- a very clear communicator, easy to listen to without being in the least fluffy. He spent the morning sessions talking about the integrity of the Bible, particularly with reference to the quasi-historical allegations presented in The Da Vinci Code, which he believes Christians need to be aware of and prepared to talk about with those who have read the book. So if I learned nothing else last week, it was that the Council of Nicea not only did not elevate Jesus to deity (rather, it simply put into credal form what the various Christian churches scattered around the Mediterranean verifiably believed, agreed upon, and had been teaching for the past couple of centuries), but it had nothing whatsoever to do with choosing or even confirming the books of the Bible, as Dan Brown's book alleges. The canon wasn't even on the table at Nicea.

Anyway, it was all quite informative without ever turning into an info-dump, and as the week went on he moved on to talk about how the canon of Scripture really did come together, why books like the OT apocrypha and the Gnostic "Gospels" were rejected by the early church, etc., and then wound up with a discussion of supposed errors and contradictions in the Bible, the various categories into which they fall, and how they can be thoughtfully faced and addressed by the thinking Christian. All very practical and interesting... and then in the evening, Dr. McRae talked about the letters to the seven churches of Asia in Revelation 2-3, and what they have to teach us about different types of congregations and different kinds of Christians -- ourselves and our home congregations included. So that was a different kind of ministry, challenging and thought-provoking in its own right.

I won't even get into how good the food was at every single meal, or how much of it we all ate, even the kids (who are ordinarily somewhat picky). The only real downside of the week was that I had a terrible time sleeping. Our room had an air conditioner, but it only served to make me roll about in a cold sweat instead of a hot one every night. I was relieved to get home and back into my own comfortable bed again.