Bob's and Kristy's Retirement

A few weeks ago, I attended a retirement party for a man named Bob Nass and his wife Kristy Nass. Bob was the director of Sequoia Brigade Camp (SBC), whose programming I attended every summer from 1999 to 2011.*

The event was held at Fair Oaks Church in Concord, CA—Bob’s and Kristy’s church; the church that I attended almost weekly from birth until I graduated from high school; and the church that hosted our chapter of Christian Service Brigade (CSB), 953.**

I pulled into the church parking lot for the first time since December 24, 2014. I exited my car and walked toward the brick plaza abutting the main sanctuary and the Adult Learning Center (ALC) building, where dozens of chairs and circular tables were laid out in the shade of the massive 350-year-old oak tree—the focal point of the brick plaza. I gave my name at the registration table, wondering if any of the volunteers at the table would recognize my name or my family’s name given our heavy involvement with SBC and CSB over the past two decades. But to them, I was just another pre-registered guest. I had no idea who the volunteers were; why would they know who I was?

Seeking a bathroom, I opened one of the ALC doors that led to the hallway connecting the kitchen, the meeting rooms, and the bathrooms. I walked down the tiled hallway that I had swept and mopped so many times as a custodial employee of the church between 2009 and 2011. I opened the bathroom door to reveal the same porcelain fixtures that had been there as long as I could remember. So this urinal still doesn’t flush, I thought as the yellow liquid did not recede after I had pulled the handle.

Upon my return to the plaza, I was torn between two options for my next actions: do I keep to myself, or do I attempt to socialize with people that I haven’t seen in six or more years? What would we talk about? Almost certainly the majority of these people still believe in the missions of CSB and SBC, not to mention the deity of Jesus and even the existence of God.

As people circulated about the plaza, I identified faces of people whom I had known years ago. A few of them had put on weight, so to be crass, it was not the shape of their faces that I recognized. Some passers-by recognized me, and they initiated conversation. (Does small talk count as a legitimate conversation?)

How does one sum up his life over the previous seven years in order to respond to the question, “How have you been?” It always seems that the easiest way to combat this issue is to highlight the accomplishments from the time period in question. I told everyone that I had been “well”, and provided as supporting evidence my graduation with two degrees from Berkeley, my San Francisco residency, and my employment in airport planning consulting. My conversation partners followed suit, although an item often included in their lists was a marriage.

I know this crowd. It was safer for me to remain at a high level rather than share other equally monumental details from the last seven years of my life, such as my triumph-in-progress over anxiety and depression, my acceptance of my sexual identity, my about-face toward Christianity, and my cohabitation with my partner. It wasn’t just my mood that I was attempting to keep safe; I wanted to keep safe the reputation that these people had attached to me years ago. God knows Christians are good at tarnishing their memories of you if you later become a person whose “lifestyle” they don’t support.

Let’s make a deal—you can approach me and converse with me, and I’ll keep you at an arm’s length. If that’s what it will take to ensure you still think of me as a good person, then sure, I can be the same Max you knew years ago.

That is, until the National Director of CSB addresses the attendees. During his speech, the focus of which was an update of the status of CSB as an organization, he stressed the importance of CSB’s mission of developing godly men at a time when “gender confusion” is rampant. Without taking another breath, in his next sentence, he aggressively dismissed the concept of “toxic masculinity”. “Excuse me,” I said to the others at my table, and I stood up and walked toward the ALC.

Frankly, I wasn’t upset. As I said earlier, I know this crowd. I did not excuse myself because I had been “triggered” or because I needed a “safe space”. I excused myself to demonstrate that I am unwilling to listen to someone who clearly would not offer me the same courtesy. “Man, it only took them five minutes to make it political,” my older brother remarked to me a few minutes later.

I returned to the table after about ten minutes. Various other middle-aged white men spoke, emphasizing the mission of CSB to build, and I quote: “man-on-man discipleship”. I chuckled.

Near the end of the ceremony, Bob was presented an honorary “Herald of Christ” award—the highest distinction within Christian Service Brigade (think Eagle Scout). Kristy was also presented an award, which was symbolized by an engraved heart necklace. However, the legitimacy of her award was strangely discounted. The current CSB regional director who had replaced Bob emphasized that no such award had existed before and it was created especially for her; because, as he put it, “that [ministering to women] is not our calling”.

There is a fundamental difference between the awards that Bob and Kristy received. Bob’s award represented an achievement which was meaningful within the entire CSB organization; Kristy’s award represented the inability of the organization to recognize any contributions made by an entire gender. Bob’s award was institutionalized; Kristy’s was ad-hoc. In presenting Kristy’s award, the CSB regional director was asserting that the organization had no way to thank her for her years of service, and it would not even try to find a way. Instead, a makeshift thank-you was created by the decisions of a few.

Kristy is a true gem, and that is an offensive understatement. She is among the top of the list of the most generous, gracious, hard-working, and kind people I have ever known. She worked tirelessly supporting Bob’s ministry—whether that took the form of driving vans hitched with trailers for hundreds of miles; directing, leading, and participating in similar camps for girls; or, most notably, cooking delicious meal after delicious meal for what must have been tens of thousands of mouths over the years. (Her homemade apple butter is to die for.) She never showed anything but positivity and devotion, and she welcomed with open arms anyone that came into her home, kitchen, or dining room. That woman gave us all so much over the years, and we gave her a necklace in response?

I do not mean to discount the good intentions behind recognizing Kristy. Additionally, I know she is a modest woman who never seeks recognition for her work, and she will treasure the necklace because of what it represents. I just think she deserved more.

As the event reached its close, a campfire was lit in the church parking lot.*** The mingling resumed. Slowly, a cohort of alumni from the 953 CSB chapter accumulated at our table. We began recounting stories from the past of 953. Names that had been outside of our consciousnesses for years were resurrected; memories were jogged; laughter erupted.

A guy named Cody joined our circle, sitting just outside the right boundary of my 180-degree peripheral field. Cody and I had been the same year in school, so we had been in the same 953 and SBC “class” for at least six years. He had been homeschooled in an aggressively Christian family, so perhaps consequently, I could never really make sense of him. At times, he was rambunctious and invigorated; other times, he was awkward and uptight. I had removed him as a Facebook friend about five years earlier because his posts got way too strange and Christian for me. Therefore, it wasn’t clear to me what the social rules were with respect to our interaction at this event. Should I acknowledge him, or do I not need to?

I chose the latter. I don’t know if we even made eye contact. Which was probably fine because he didn’t contribute to the conversation, so there was never a moment when we should have given him our attention.

Some younger guys—current members of 953—joined our group. Their energy was insatiable; they soaked up every story we told, and then they asked for more. Even though most of us alumni had never met the current 953 guys, none of our stories required explanation of background. The core operation had not changed, so these younger guys knew all the institutions, structures, and rituals that framed our stories. We could in turn ask them about the most recent Junior Leadership Conference (JLC), Nor-Cal Camporal, and Pre-Camp Training. Our experiences had provided a common language that transcended the years of our respective stints in 953.

“953 is thriving,” one of the current members beamed. “953 has had such an impact on my life,” another shared. In a hushed tone, a third implied the existence of a 953 tattoo on multiple members’ bodies.

It gave me joy to hear the enthusiasm of these guys. I think the joy came from realizing that the organization to which I dedicated so much time had not been in vain. But what does that mean when you no longer believe in the ideals underpinning the organization in question?

There’s something deeper to organizations like 953 than just the ideology. It is the formation of a community. I think an indication of a healthy organization is whether the value of community detaches itself from and exists independent of the institution, at which point the institution is just a vessel to bring the community together. What this means is that the members would still have formed a community if their uniting organization had been dedicated to, say, torching historical monuments. The common ideology is a good starting point to bring people together, but a successful community would continue to exist if the institution dissolved.

I believe 953 successfully achieved this separation between community and institution. I saw it during my own membership; there were six of us in my “class” who all regularly participated in and engaged with SBC and CSB events. I saw it in a younger cohort as I was on the brink of graduation; Josh Slivinski, Josh Jones, Nick Jones, and my younger brother formed an even stronger, more magnetic culture than the one I had. And I saw it in today’s 953; evidently, several of them had recently taken a trip in which they drove from the Bay Area to New Orleans, had lunch, and then drove home. They repeated such a trip with Portland, Oregon as the destination. Absurd things such as those trips only happen in strong communities.

Perhaps this is why in my fraternity interviews, SBC and CSB were never specifically mentioned as formative items in my life. These organizations, their curriculum, and their ideologues were not what had the greatest effect on shaping me. Rather, the first person whom I told about my habit of watching gay pornography was another counselor from SBC. (A female counselor, but the principle still stands.)

As the round tables were folded up and the chairs stacked, we were cued to clear the oak tree patio. The mingling following the event’s official programming was implicitly encouraged to continue off-site, so the group of 953 alumni decided to go out for beers at Mike Hess Brewing Company in Walnut Creek. The invitation to consume alcohol with other alumni seemed to represent a boundary crossing. Since we had been underage while active in the organizations, we couldn’t drink together; so this was uncharted territory for us. I wonder what Bob would have thought of it.

We piled into cars and caravanned from the church. On the way, my older brother remarked to me, “It seems like 953 has become a cult, but I’m kind of okay with that.”

The brewery was a new establishment, part of a sparkling shopping center that occupied a former vast field at the corner of Oak Grove Road and Ygnacio Valley Road. We circled the parking lot attempting to find the brewery, passing a host of vacant storefronts with “For Lease” signs in the windows. Did they really build this much of this shopping center on speculation? I wondered. Who was willing to cough up the cash to shoulder that risk?

Even though we were crossing a boundary by drinking together, I still felt the need to keep the other alumni at an arm’s length, especially after I overheard many of them talking about their churches. It was clear that if personal issues such as faith were to come up, we would not be able to speak the same language. There was again the desire to preserve the reputation that this crowd might have perceived of me, which was based on Christian-me from seven-plus years ago. In fact, the only person to whom I revealed that I no longer attend church was Shannon, Isaac Svensson’s girlfriend. I had only just met her for the first time that night, but I could tell that she was safe. In addition, she held no previous reputation attached to me in her head (except that which Isaac might have told her). With her, I had freedom to be who I was now rather than who I was years ago.

Our time at the brewery was abruptly cut short when staff came around at 10 PM, asked us to stop consuming, and took the glasses back. Evidently, some restriction did not permit them to serve alcohol after 10:00. I have never heard of such a restriction before. Was it a cheaper version of a standard liquor license, perhaps? Was there neighborhood opposition that prompted a perpetual early business closure?

Then we drove to a karaoke bar down the street. Where the hell is there a karaoke bar around here? I thought. I followed another car, and I was surprised to find our destination was in the same parking lot as the Trader Joe’s that we frequented after Sunday night CSB meetings growing up. It’s amazing the world that opens up to you after you turn 21; how spaces that you thought you knew gain another layer of depth. Of course, it’s questionable whether the karaoke bar we went to adds “depth” to that plaza—the bar was pretty divey.

In my periphery, I noticed two young guys sitting together. My gaydar started going off. I’m not sure why—perhaps it was their subtle mannerisms that I instinctively picked up on. Perhaps it was the way they looked at each other. Perhaps it was the noticeable effort put into their appearances over the other men in the bar. Or perhaps it was wishful thinking that there might be other gay boys to bring the rainbow to the heteronormative wasteland of Walnut Creek. But my gaydar has also been dead wrong many times, so I kept an eye on them in an attempt to find any telltale sign.

Aha! A hand caress. They’re homos. Are they on a date? Why are they at this bar?

Two SBC alumni had previously put their names in the karaoke queue and were called to the microphone. I watched the text on the karaoke screen change colors, noticing the instances when the singers’ enunciation did not align with the words. I wondered if the guys were drunk—whether they were that kind of Christians.

The song's conclusion seemed as good a time as any to bid my adieus.

My westward drive on CA-24 to San Francisco may as well have been a portal through time, transporting me away from the people and places of my past. I wonder if this portal was one-way without an option to return. Bob Nass was the common denominator that brought all of us to the event. Perhaps his retirement meant that this was the last time this particular group of people would gather. Perhaps Sequoia Brigade Camp and the relationships contained therein will henceforth only be in my past.

I don’t know if that’s good, bad, or just a thing.







* From 1999 to 2002, I attended Father-Son Camp with my dad and older brother (and younger brother in 2002). In 2003 and 2004, I attended Stockade Camp (now called NorCal Boys’ Adventure Camp), which was essentially a camp version of the Sunday evening program I attended during the school year, Christian Service Brigade. In 2005, I again attended Father-Son Camp with my dad and younger brother. In 2006, I attended Aviation Camp, during which I co-piloted Cessna aircraft local flights (i.e., not itinerant) out of Columbia Airport. From 2007 to 2010, I served as a junior counselor for 3 ½ weeks of camps, including the camp I had attended years earlier, Boys’ Adventure Camp. In 2008, I attended Surf Camp and quickly learned that I do not enjoy surfing or swimming in the ocean. In 2011, I attended the three-day junior counselor “pre-camp training” as a mentor.


** Sequoia Brigade Camp (SBC) was branded as the “camping arm” of Christian Service Brigade (CSB), an organization for which the only apt and sufficiently concise description is “Christian Boy Scouts”. In addition to the programs listed above, SBC offered a whole host of (usually) weeklong camps: Base Camp, SoCal Boys’ Adventure Camp, Father-Daughter Camp, SoCal Girls’ Adventure Camp, Father-Daughter Canoe Trip, White Water Canoe Trip, Wilderness Adventure Camp (“the WAC”), Canadian Canoe Trip, Scuba Camp, Three-Peak Adventure, and even Glacier Climbing School one year. It’s actually quite an impressive catalogue.


*** At most camps, each day concluded with a campfire program produced largely by the junior counselors. These campfires consisted of “fun songs”, a skit, “transition songs”, a junior counselor’s testimony, “slow songs”, an allegorical story, and a closing message with a silent altar-call. The campfire was an institution, and its format was sacred; it had been carefully crafted to gently settle campers down from the adventures of the day and to whet their receptivity to the gospel.