Week 7 - The Square Dance

I attended a private Lutheran school called Guardian Lutheran from Preschool to 8th Grade. I don't regret going there, and despite not being a Lutheran I don't feel like that affected how people treated me. It was a good school, I had a lot of fun. As a student of Guardian, I went to two different camps. The first was Pleasant Lake, which I went to twice in 3rd and 4th Grade. This was I think late May, or the very beginning of June. The other was Camp Cavell, which I only went to in 8th Grade, and it was in November. Both camps are Christian-based, although I’m not sure if either are specifically Lutheran-based. Cavell was fun, but there’s one specific event that I want to talk about: The Square Dance.

Okay it’s not really a square dance. That’s the codename that people that went to Camp Cavell use to tell their siblings as to make sure they aren’t prepared. And it worked, fellow students kept saying “ah now we’re going to do the square dance.” The chaperones get around to tell us this is not a square dance. It’s an event called “Cavellica”. The idea is that Cavellica is a world where Christianity is outlawed. The goal is to make it to a safe-haven, and to make it to the safe-haven, you have to tell the guard a secret password. The adults are all playing specific parts, most of them being goons who’ll check if we’re Christians. One of these goons is a spy but we had to impress them first. Another one of the goons was a passive atheist who had his own safe-haven for those who said they were atheists (ironically he was played by the Pastor from my school). If the goons who weren’t the spy or the passive atheist found out we were Christians, they would take us somewhere to get killed. When you’re killed in Cavellica, you’re given a tag that says that you were martyred. I think you stayed at the place you were “killed” until the game was over, I’m not sure since I never died in the game. And then we were off!

Immediately, I came up with a story to trip up the goons. I was a Canadian trying to get the boats working (there were canoes on the camp’s shore that I guess I thought were boats) so that I could go back to Canada. In hindsight, that was a terrible lie but I was 13 and thought that was a good idea. To me, it was every man for himself. Whether or not that was true didn’t matter since no one wanted to team up with me. In any situation, if my classmates had to sacrifice me so they themselves could live, they would do it without hesitation (at least the guys would, the girls would think about it). But what I ended up doing is tagging along with one of the girl teams just in case. It’s good to hang out with a crowd but not be fully committed to their ideals. They do something you don’t like, you bail immediately.

Most of Cavellica involved wandering around the dark camp. It’s not like there was much to do besides evading the goons. The Canadian story wasn't getting me far, but I really wasn't prepared to have my faith challenged that day. I'm pretty sure 13 is a bit too young to have your faith challenged in a "If you don't believe in what we believe in, we'll kill you" sort of way, but who am I to judge. At one point the group I was hanging with met with another group and we were all about to be collectively captured. We hid in one of the shelters until someone else came to tell us that the coast was clear. It was pretty exhilarating but it didn’t last long. I had broken off from the group of girls, came back later and at that point they had found out the password. They relayed it to the spy who sent them to the guard, but the spy immediately saw me and said “Woah woah woah, not you buddy.” and at this point he’d had enough of my Canadian lie. It was pretty obvious that this is where I was officially parting ways with the group, so I walked off. At this point it had become clear to me that I wasn’t getting that password, and I was left wandering the dark camp alone. All I knew to do was survive.

Eventually, one of the goons found me and told me the game was over and everyone was going to the “safe-haven” to get a lecture on a Bible lesson. Here I learned that the password was “agape”, which meant everlasting love. There were a few students that were martyred, and I learned that if anything, they won the game in their own way. Because they were willing to die for their faith. I wasn’t, and I still wouldn’t. I think that was the biggest thing I took away from that experience. If there was anything else for me to take away, it’s that nobody I knew was gonna have my back when the going gets rough.

How would I have played the game differently if I played it today? Let’s assume that the password is different so I don’t just wait 45 minutes and go straight to the guard, and let’s also assume that I still won’t want to get martyred despite that actually ending up being encouraged. The first major thing I would change is my story. A Canadian trying to get a boat away from Cavellica? What? If I don’t want to lie and say “I’m Agnostic” then I would probably try reciting the scene from Xavier: Renegade Angel where Xavier overthinks the concept of belief. Or hang with the passive atheist for as long as I can. If someone tries to stop me I’d tell them something I do believe in: “Faith shouldn’t matter as long as you’re a good person.”