A Life in Snapshots

A Life in Snapshots

I’m a sucker for nostalgia. In fact, I attribute a huge portion of my personality to this character trait. I love looking back on any given day and trying to figure out what I was doing a year ago—where I was, who I was and what I deemed important.

You should try it—when people look at their lives in snapshots, they are always surprised to find that, week by week, day by day, they’ve been growing and changing into who they are today.

The days between Christmas and the New Year bring a unique season to our country. People seem to stop collectively and examine what their lives have consisted of in the past year, two years, five years— and more importantly, they consider whether or not the things they pour their time, energy and passion into really matter.

In other words, it’s a nation-wide nostalgia session. It’s a healthy dose of hindsight—we can look back at our lives and see how much we’ve grown, where we are now and where we want to go next.

Let me show you what I’m talking about when I say a life in snapshots. Bust out your Marty McFly vests y’all, because we’re traveling all the way back to the sepia-stained year of 2009 so I can prove my point.

February 2, 2009

It's a Monday, and I'm wrapping up one of the last dress rehearsals for Les Miserables. At this point of my life, I have a five-year streak of shows going for me. I never had more than two weeks off between any two productions, and as an aspiring actor, that’s the way I liked it. In my mind, this was how my life was meant to be—a never-ending string of shows.

In my sophomore year of high school I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life; I just had fun and lived from one rehearsal to the next. My closest friends were the guys my age in the youth group—we got ourselves tangled into more mischief than I care to remember, but we had more fun than anyone we knew.

I could have cared less about school. I took Pre-AP classes, skirted my way through the mandatory Spanish classes, and avoided anything that required effort.

As far as leadership went, I had about zero interest in being involved in any. The extent of my leadership experience consisted of co-directing a 15-minute one act— I was a born, albeit articulate, follower.

November 15, 2010

                Like everyone else in the high school graduating class of 2011, I had become acutely aware that a clock ticked in the background—the time bomb named “college”. It terrifies, excites, and frustrates everybody their senior year. For me, decision time had come.

                I still had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, but I knew that God had already said no to me pursuing theatre in college.  At this point, however, I turned a deaf ear and stubbornly prepared college audition tapes in spite of what I knew God had told me. 

               

               It would be another five months before I finally accepted God’s plan (*cough* Jeremiah 29:11 *COUGH*). This led to a very bitter season of my life where I didn’t treat the people around me well in any sense of the word.

                School had become an oppressively boring routine. I was one of the guys you would see in classes like “Marine Biology”—because in the back of my head I kept telling myself it didn’t matter what I was enrolled in, because musical theatre programs weren’t going to care what my GPA was.

                At this point, God had planted the seed of leadership in my heart, but it was small. The word that seemed to haunt me as I prepared to leave Union High School was “legacy”—I was constantly plagued with a question: “What legacy are you leaving behind you, and is it a legacy worth following?”

                I never liked the answer to that question.

December 3, 2011

            It’s the Saturday before dead week—and I’m at a party. There are probably 250 people in the house, and I walked around like I know every one of them.

             This marked the end of one of the most impacting semesters of my life—starting college, pledging BYX, and become an extrovert by choice—and when I say extrovert, I mean EXTROVERT. Life had never been so exciting and dynamic.

                My study habits had become drastically different. I knew every good study spot on campus, because I had frequented most of them myself. I had decided on public relations as a major, and was completely stoked for my future in it (STILL AM).

                I had two crystal-clear passions in my life: leadership and people. I feverishly pursued opportunities to be an influencer, leader and example-setter—more than that though, I sought out any opportunity to meet and connect with people. I would drop a textbook instantly for the opportunity to go to Classics with a couple pledge brothers “just because”.

                I had hit the sweet spot—I could feel God moving in every day of my life, and each new day held a new experience.

                I can’t help but love life each day now.

December 19, 2012  

                I’m 20 now. I’m at the precipice of the most exciting decade of my life, and I’m experiencing it with some of the best people I’ve ever known. My roommates are the most unique blend of personalities I could ever imagine, and they are the support group that has pushed me this semester to grow in more ways than one. They are just a few of the great friends that have come into my life that make every day a memorable blessing.

               Between learning a new language, picking up business classes and starting up my second consecutive season of being in charge of rush for my fraternity, I sometimes can't help but laugh when I think that four years ago the most exciting thing in my life was the next show.

                I joke with the people I’m close to often that I feel like I’ve started my 30s more than my 20s. Yet at the same time, I really do feel that way—and it’s a good thing. Maturity is a lifelong journey—but the past year and a half has grown me exponentially. It makes me irrepressibly excited for the future—one year down the road, two, three. The road I’m on is the kind that is filled with so much life and hope I can’t even understand how lucky I am.

Nathan, what are you getting at? 

               

                Look at the snapshots of your own life. I'm willing to bet if you roll the clock back even three years, you'd hardly be able to recognize yourself. But so often we lose sight of this fantastic journey.

                It’s so easy to get lost in the day-to-day, the routines, the checklists, the goals. When we let ourselves get enveloped in all of that, we don’t see how we’re changing over time. Our noses get too close to the grindstone and we get wrapped up in things that aren't  important. So here is what I’m asking you two weeks ahead of time.

                This New Years, take a step back and look at your life. Look back a year, two years. Ask yourself, who are you now? What do you value? What are your priorities? What are your goals? Have they changed since a year ago? Two years ago?

                Then ask yourself this— where do you want to take your life now?

Your future is in good hands—it’s in your hands. So grab it, and go run after something worth chasing so that you have something to remember when you look back on 2013.

See what a little nostalgia can do?

Go celebrate Christmas—enjoy your families, remember the birth of our Savior and bring in the New Years right—but take a few minutes to step away. Look back and reflect—

Because when you look at a life in snapshots, you’ll be surprised how much the picture changes.

Thanks for reading—I wish you all a Merry (Early) Christmas!

Yours,

Nathan Robertson

               

A Frank Discussion on Pride and Confidence

Oh hey there! Long time no blog.

It’s been far too long. I’ve been robbed of the time to blog freely this semester.

                Life, per usual, is an exciting and dynamic blur. Each day develops organically and brings new surprises and developments, and God never ceases to surprise me with new angles of insights.

  

              To fill in the gap from the last three months, here are some highlights—

--Learning Chinese is the most rewarding headache I’ve ever had—one semester down, a lifetime to go!

--Working on a start-up company with friends is setting the stage for a very exciting spring semester.

--Running a blog for OU’s student government keeps me all over campus—from campus-wide “go green” initiatives to state-wide food drives, maintaining the blog keeps me attached to the daily events of OU.

--Raising the newest pledge class of BYX has been an awesome experience, and I’m proud of the tangible growth I’ve seen nearly 70 young men go through.

--My “No-Shave-November” beard actually accomplished “beard” status this year.

--After gaining admittance to the Honors College, I’ve started my first research paper. I don’t know if *anyone* reading can relate to what I’m about to say, but I’m very, very excited for the journey that’s already begun with the paper, including engaging Professor Alexander Holmes in deep academic conversations of ethics.

                It’s hard to give an accurate view of three months in snapshot-style blurbs, so I want to give you something that’s been on my heart lately. I want to talk about pride and confidence: the former of which I struggle with, the latter of which I hope you all seek to foster in yourselves.

Pride is a fickle thing.

I’d like to think that I’m good at regulating my pride—but since I’m hardly unbiased, I’m not making a strong statement.

Something I can state firmly, however, is that an important line between the definitions of “confidence” and “pride” has begun to blur in the past couple decades. While these words are *generally* the same, there are important distinctions that must be made.

Why is this important? Because I believe understanding the difference is a huge step for Christians to take in utilizing their God-given gifts.

Let’s start with pride. I can tell you from experience that it can be a stumbling block in anyone’s life—and it is a block in many lives. Our culture has been churning out movies and TV shows for several generations now that reinforce the concept that we all are the center of our own little universe.

Don’t believe me? DVR a Jersey Shore re-run. Pop in a Disney movie. (Not that I’m hating. Hercules will always be my favorite Disney movie, hands down.)

So why’s it an issue?

Pride isn’t the worst issue we could have in our lives. In fact, pride normally is the byproduct of many good things in our lives— like success, love and meeting our aspirations, amongst other things. Somewhere along the parade of our own accomplishments, however, we’ll encounter a tiny, inaudible little voice in our head that says—

“Well, look at all these things that   I  have done.”

And just like that, a seed is planted in our hearts.

“Look at what  I  have done. Look at the success in my life and how  I  did it, all by myself, without help from anyone.”

And the tirade doesn’t stop there. It continues. Before we know it, we’re subconsciously claiming credit for every good thing that has every happened in our life.

Pride denies the idea that God gives us gifts. Pride claims that we’re all self-made men who develop our own talents. Pride dismisses humility, does not acknowledge meek behavior and disregards the idea of crediting anything to others.

But let me re-emphasize the most important part of that again.

Pride denies the idea that God gives us gifts.

Now let’s talk about why confidence is different.

Where pride says “I know I’m responsible for the gifts in my life,” confidence says “I know I have gifts in my life, and I’m going to use them intentionally.” It’s being bold with the gifts God has given us, and not being afraid to stretch ourselves to see those gifts further realized. Confidence sharpens us, makes us more intentional and spurs us to do big things with our lives.

So why does the difference matter?

My confidence has sky rocketed the past year and a half. After being mentored and groomed by student and faculty leaders, I am beginning to develop a very keen awareness of where my strengths lie and how to use them effectively. I still periodically struggle with pride, and for the longest time I tried to find a balance, swinging between utter narcissism and the absence of any confidence.

But here’s some scripture that got me thinking.

Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.

Romans 12:6-8

This is the conclusion I came to after several weeks.

We should be bold, confident and unafraid to pursue excellence in the areas we are gifted. We are not blessed with talents so that we can sit on, hide or belittle them. We need to acknowledge our talents and skills so we can develop them, and use them for God’s glorification. Confidence is good for us!

However, this all must be framed in a bigger picture. We need to be confident in our God-given gifts, but retain the humility to never forget that they’re God-given.

(^^*cough* Take-home point *cough*^^)

So yeah. Be confident, not prideful; bold, not narcissistic; and never forget that we were designed for a purpose.

Hopefully this blog has given my friend's parents from my home church in Tulsa an update on my life (That's right-- my mom has told me which ones of you read this!), and given my college friends a ten minute break from studying. (Trust me-- you need the break.)

Love y’all, Thanks for reading, and T-minus 20 days until CHRISTMAS!

Nathan Robertson

P.S.

For more reading on the importance of investing in your spiritual gifts, read the parable in Matthew 25:14-30    #RealTalk #JesusTalk

 P.P.S. 

Did I mention only 20 days until Christmas? Oh I did? Ok good. Just reminding you.

Fratting with Faith

           

This is a post that’s been on my heart to write for a month now—with all the new men in the Greek system, I wanted to write a serious blog about balancing faith and fraternity life.

                I want to start with a disclaimer however: This post is not criticizing Greek life. I am very fond of my university’s Greek system, and I believe it produces excellent men and women.

 This is encouragement and advice to Christian men who are unsure how to balance fraternity life with faith—and I hope this is how it’s seen. There are four major topics that I want to hit on: women, representation, involvement and the big picture.

Women

The first lesson I learned in college: there are so many attractive girls. Even girls that I had known before college suddenly seemed more attractive. Girls, girls, girls.

 Now, I love girls.I’ll be the first one to admit it. However, all the beautiful women and the freedom freshman experience can lead men down a path of lust that’s hard to get off.

The most important thing to remember is respect. Women are beautiful— that’s the way God designed them— but they aren’t objects to desire after.

In The Five Love Languages, Dr. Gary Chapman warns single adults of the consequences of leading a lust oriented life.  When you start treating women like objects, it leads to a dangerous and unfulfilling lifestyle.

“Men—and women—who devote themselves to unrestricted physical satisfaction do not attain happiness and very often suffer from neurotic conflicts or symptoms,” Chapman says. “It is not only not the basis for happiness, it does not even guarantee sanity” (Chapman 104).

Representation

One of the first things you will hear in pledgeship is how important letters are—don’t do this in letters, and don’t do that. Letters are important because it affiliates you with the house, and your actions will have a positive or negative effect on your house’s reputation.

You’re relationship with Christ is like wearing a second set of letters— and sometimes it can feel just as restrictive. Don’t say this,don’t do that, don’t, don’t, don’t. But try seeing it this way—

You get to be a representative for Christ 24/7. You get to be a spokesperson, trendsetter, and example of what Christ’s love should look like in a man. Your pledge brothers, classmates and professors will know you’re different because your actions will hold you to a different standard.

With this privilege comes the responsibility of integrity—you can’t “take a day off”. When training his student staff for Camp Crimson, Director Zac Stevens said be aware of your actions because “seven people are looking at you at any given point in time.”

People are watching—rep your letters well, rep Christ better.

(If you want to see what happens to people who don’t rep their letters well, just peruse any TFM Fail Friday.)

Involvement

This is my personal song and dance. If you’re asking why getting involved is a tip I give to men, then my explanation is through the lyrics of a Passion song:

“Let what we do in here, fill the streets out there”(Our Love is Loud, 2001).

Fraternities encourage their members to get involved out on campus, and Christian men should be the first ones jumping onboard the involvement wagon.

After college, very few graduates will ever have a chance to affect a network the size of their university. Seize this—do homecoming, attend mixers, go to club meetings, run for elections, try out different things and always keep an open heart. You never know where God wants to use you.

On a related note, involvement is a great way to build you as a leader, and the world needs more strong Christian MEN leaders. In John Mawell’s Developing the Leader Within You,Maxwell defines leadership concisely—

“Leadership is influence”(Maxwell 1).

Get active, get involved, get influence, and use it for His glory. Boom boom boom.

Big Picture

This is one I struggle with the most.

Greek life is great. I really, really enjoy Greek life. But Greek life is temporary.

For four years I’ll be an active member of my fraternity, and then I’m alum—there’s no re-pledging and doing it over. While my fraternity is a lifetime brotherhood, my relationship with Christ is eternal.

These four years should be used to strengthen and shape you into the man Christ wants you to be—and when I say man, I mean MAN. I mean a Godly man who is confident, a leader, and humble to know everything he has is God-given—which is an incredibly, incredibly difficult kind of man to become.

However, it’s a journey well worth taking.

It is my hope that men read this and find inspiration in it.While I’ve heavily condensed this post, this article came be summarized by four words from my roommate, the incredibly swole Tony Silva—

“Frat hard, praise harder.”

Enough said.

-Nathan Robertson

Adjusting to the Fall: Houseboy Life

If any of you have seen a tweet from me the past few days, it's likely been punctuated with the hashtag "houseboy life". For those of you who don't know what that means, I'm about to blow your mind.

But first, a little context.

My summer schedule is almost wrapped up. I only have one job left from the summer, and it wraps up Wednesday. While most collegiate students are in the holding tank between summer life and the fall semester-- a time where the most exciting thing to do is order textbooks-- I've jumped in early with my on-campus job. Or rather, on-sorority-row job.

That's right. I'm back on scene as an Alpha Phi Houseboy.

                                                                    Dad's Day, 2011

Located in the heart of South Greek, I've been working for the Ladies of the Ivy for ten months now-- and the most frequently asked question I get from the girls in the house is as follows--

"So, what do you actually do?"

Here's where the mind blowing begins.

My job, essentially, is that of a glorified dishboy mixed with a fraternity man's dream come true. With perks. A whooooole lot of perks.

I work, at max, maybe seven hours a week. Not only do I get paid for that, but I can walk in and eat in the house for any meal. I eat three square meals a day, every day, cooked by a professional chef, for free.

Did I mention it's in a sorority house?

That's right-- long gone are the days where I was selling sno cones to impatient children at the local Broken Arrow pool. I'm working, and dining, with some of the finest ladies at the University of Oklahoma.

                                                              
                                                                  Work Week, 2012
                                                 

And I tell you what, it sure beats the sno cone days.

However, from a deeper level, it's been a really awesome experience to watch the meaningful relationships develop over the past months. In a family related blog written by Leanne Ely, the dinner table was described as "a place of communion, fellowship, and reconnecting with those we care about most."

 And when I look at it, my job at Alpha Phi is serving me on all three counts-- communion, fellowship and reconnecting.

At Alpha Phi, four out of the five guys I'm living with this year are on staff. I eat with the girls regularly and talk about classes we have together, things that happened on campus and funny stories from their families. Mom Rose, the House Mom, has made me feel so comfortable around the house that I've started treating the house's kitchen like my own.

Working at Alpha Phi isn't just one of the best jobs I've ever had-- it's also given me a chance to develop meaingful and impacting relationships with people in the house, and create an OU version of "a home to go to" for dinner, studying...and yeah, getting paid.

We're just wrapping up rush week at the house, and it's been a blast-- it's got me pumped to start my own rush season, but also, it's got me excited to begin another year of relationship building for the glorification of Jesus Christ. Building relationships with the intention of loving on people is one of the best things I can do with my time at OU, and intend to do it.


  "Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us." -1 John 4:11-12

And also, another year of awesome food. If you haven't tasted Blanca's cooking, you haven't lived fully.

Thank you for reading! God Bless, Boomer Sooner, and three days until the class of 2016 moves in! Get excited new Sooners!

Yours,

Nathan Robertson

Three Men of Note

Sometimes I lose things. It's not an intentional habit, but it is a habit that has followed me to college.

Most times it's something trivial. A pack of gum, maybe a couple of note cards. Yesterday, however, I lost my press badge-- one of the things I loved to wear the most this summer, more than a freshly dry cleaned seers sucker suits, with a cane to match.

My initial reaction was upset. That press badge had been with me the entire summer, through lazy weekends and Tuesdays where I had to cover three stories in one day.

However, as I wrap up my last full week as a media employee at the University of Oklahoma, it seems fitting that I lose the press badge at this time. It's sort of a symbolic transition doo-hingy.

That being said, I would like to talk about three people who I met along the way in my journey of reporting for three different media venues consecutively— three men who each impacted me in their own unique way.

First man: Kyle Butcher, Couch Center Coordinator. Kyle has been a very busy man this summer-- on top of his normal duties with Housing and Food, he has been organizing and preparing to launch a new transfer student organization that he will be co-advising with his wife, Kacee.

Kyle and I crossed paths at the transfer session of Camp Crimson in June, and we immediately hit it off. Not only was Kyle an alumni from the same fraternity and chapter as I, but we have the same UZoo combination-- porpoise, eagle, lion, koala.

That last sentence likely makes no sense if you're not involved in student life at OU-- suffice it to say, we had a lot in common.

I got the opportunity to sit down with Kyle a few weeks later in his office to interview him for a story I was running on his new transfer organization, and we ended up talking for nearly two hours.

Kyle was a transfer student to OU, transferring from a much smaller university. He transitioned well into Sooner life-- as one might guess since he is now on the Sooner payroll-- but he's keenly aware of the difficulties that many transfer students face.

“We want transfer students to see all the university has to offer," Kyle says. "We don’t want them going to their classes, and then going straight back to their cars.”

 Kyle is just incredibly difficult not to like. He's one of those guys that you want to partner up with, get behind and say, "Whatever you're doing, I want to be a part of."

And apparently, I wasn't the only one who thought that.

Kristen Partridge and Zac Stevens, well known faces in the world of student life at OU, handpicked Kyle for this organization. They recognized that Kyle was equipped and passionate for the job at hand, and put him at the helm.

 "He will be a voice for students and their needs as well as someone who can give us data about how transfer students' experiences are unfolding at OU," Kristen says.

In sum, Kyle is a big man who’s going to be doing big things on the transfer scene—and I’m no fortune teller, but it’s not a stretch to say “future dean of students”.

Second Man: Henry Neeman,  Director of OU OSCER, a branch of OU IT. I sought Henry out because I was doing a story on the supercomputer Boomer, the fourth and newest supercomputer in OU's history. Henry and I only spoke briefly, thirty minutes at the most, in his office-- but the talk was memorable.

Whereas Kyle is the passionate man bringing change on the campus life scene, Henry is a catalyst of change for the research campus, a segment of OU that remains a mystery to many OU students.

The conversation started on-topic, but within ten minutes time we were simply talking about all things innovation and technology-- including the up and coming Google Glasses (which if you haven't seen, you need to. Now.) and as we progressed in our talk, it became clear to me that Henry was just a huge fan of OU.

“What it takes to constantly move forward with research is cooperation between the administration and research community – which OU is really good at," Henry says. "I'm constantly astonished, but never surprised."

There are many well-known passionate employees at the University of Oklahoma-- but many of them have their offices in the Union's student life wing. 

What made Henry extraordinary is that, despite the fact that he’s not at the heart of campus going-ons, he believes in the vision that President Boren has laid out for OU-- better yet, he's intent on inspiring and pushing his fellow employees.

"One thing I ask our researchers is 'if you had an infinitely fast computer, what would you do with it? It gets them thinking beyond today," Henry says. "I want them to dream bigger."

While it's men like Zac Stevens that orchestrate colossal programming achievements like Camp Crimson, it's men like Henry Neeman that can keep Sooner spirit alive on a cold, wet February Monday.

And that's a hard thing to do, folks. I've tried.

Third Man: The last man I'm going to talk about is as different from Henry as Henry was different from Kyle-- and he's arguably the bravest man on this list. Since I don't know the man incredibly well, we'll dub him by an alias. The last man I want to talk is "Jeff"-- Jeff the security guard.

I met Jeff at Camp Crimson’s Retro Night when I was a small group leader. I was out on the Molly Shi Ballroom balcony, taking a break from the 700 person rave that had broken out inside. I struck up casual conversation with Jeff because we were the only two outside.

I anticipated small talk. What I got, instead, was an incredible story.

Jeff, who is nearly 60 years old, has been working in security almost his entire life. When he was younger he had manned armored cars for banks, but after raising his children he decided to go into a security service company.

Jeff is the kind of man you have likely seen wearing a yellow vest on OU game days trying to direct traffic and keep order-- with no gun or badge, to add to the challenge. 

He's dealt with every yelling, screaming, drunk 40 year old alumni who tries to park where they can't park, and he gets treated like the absolute scum by most of them.

Not exactly the ideal career for someone pushing 60. But that's not all he had on his plate.

 Jeff is raising several of his grand-kids, the oldest of which is has a tendency to get hot-headed.

Jeff's solution? He got the 14-year old into football, and cut him a deal.

Jeff is in communication with his grandson's coach, and he watches most of the practices. Any time his grandson gets angry, talks back to his coach or acts out, he owes Jeff 10 push-ups when they get home.

However, whenever his grandson gets through a day with perfect behavior, Jeff owes his grandson 10 push-ups-- a bargain his grandson holds him to every time.

"We'll get home, and he'll just look at me, and say, 'uhh...grandpa, you owe me 10," Jeff says. "I tell him to go take a shower, and he says 'I will, just as soon as you drop and give me 10."

Again, not the ideal situation for a someone entering their golden years. I had to ask him, how did he handle raising his grandchildren like that at his age and hold a job? Being an OU campus life/leadership junkie, I reflexively expected to hear things like "I set a goal, and made steps on how to get there" or "I set an example of integrity that I expect them to follow."

 His answer wasn't long, but it held power in it.

"Someone's got to do right by them," says Jeff, "And if it's me that's got to do right by them, I'll do right by them.”

I don't know where Jeff is right now. I probably couldn't even pick him out on the street. But his story has been in the back of my head for nearly three weeks now. His story is so powerful to me because there isn't a higher cause, there isn't an end goal, and there isn't anyone helping him out.

He saw a problem, he got invested, and sought to right the issue—even if that meant taking on the role of a father at 60.

And while that's a story I never found an excuse to publish in the Sower, Daily, or Yearbook, I'm glad I can express it through this venue-- because Jeff's story is the one I wanted to share the most.

 However, I'm thankful for the time I spent in OU media.

I was exposed to many people and attitudes this summer, and not all of it was great, but it's people like Kyle Butcher, Henry Neeman, and Jeff the security guard that remind me of something-- 

There are good people in this community, who are doing great things, for the right reasons.

So in short-- thank you.

And as always, thank you for reading-- Boomer Sooner, and God Bless! 

Post-Camp: Lessons Taught, Lessons Learned

I can unarguably say that this weekend has been the most taxing, and rewarding, experience of my summer. Therefore, I'm blogging about it.

From July 10-14th, I was on staff as a small group leader at the University of Oklahoma's Camp Crimson experience. And I cannot think of a better introduction to this topic other than the job was everything it cracked up to be and much, much more.

On July 12th I got my campers. There was one thing I told them from the get go-

"Some of you may have been Sooner born, Sooner bred. Some of you, OU may not have been your first choice, second choice or even third. OU wasn't on the map for me until April of my senior year. I guarantee you though, that by the end of this camp you will fall in love with OU -- and I want to thank you ahead of time for letting me be a part of that journey."

Which, in retrospect, wasn't the right choice of words.

Camp is very different from the small group leader side – Camp Crimson’s standard of excitement, energy and enthusiasm is set by us. And we have to maintain that level of energy for nearly 50 hours straight.

With over 620 campers, not everyone there was immediately buying into what was going on -- people were nervous. College is a big transition. And Camp Crimson can be, at first, very intimidating.

Within the first 12 hours, I already felt like I was running on "E". I was drained, exhausted, and impatient. In my mind, if all 620+ of them weren't chanting Boomer Sooner 24/7 there was room for improvement (an exaggeration, but still).

 I was talking with other campers outside of my family, and I wanted to see more excitement than what I was getting, more energy, more enthusiasm --

To put it simply, I wanted everybody to have as hoarse a voice as me.

But then a perspective change hit.

James 1:2-4 came to mind near the end of the day. It goes a little something like this --

² Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,^[a] whenever you face trials of many kinds, ³ because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. ⁴ Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

 I stayed up for awhile thinking it through, trying to figure out how that applied to me.
That's when it hit me. It didn’t.

OU is great. I love OU, I want to get all that I can out of it in the three years I have left, and I want to encourage the class of 2016 to do the same. But OU, for students, is temporary. It's four years out of a full, healthy 80 years of life.

Right now, every incoming freshman is facing one of the biggest transitions of their life. It's big, it's scary, and it's a challenge that will force them to make some big, scary choices. The choices they make during their freshman year will influence the patterns of success and happiness for the rest of their adult life.

Dramatic, but for those of you who have been there, you know it's true.

My mission changed: I realized now that I was part of God's plan to equip these new Sooners with what they needed – which in most cases, was something more substantial than a new way to chant “Ellison”.

 It was no longer,

"What can I give my campers to prep them for OU?" but it was-

"What can I give my campers that will do them the best good?"

I realized I had answered my own question thirty minutes earlier, in the form of a late night tweet.

"You can't make someone love OU as much as you do. But you can love them, and that impacts their life in unprecedented ways. ‪#learningsomuch"

If any of my campers happen to be reading this blog, I want you to know this: I care about you. Not because of anything you said or did (though there were some very memorable moments with a few of you that are branded into my mind) but because I once had small group leaders too- and I know the impact they have. 

I think Zac Stevens nailed it during training when he said (and I paraphrase--)

"Some of your campers may get involved in organizations you're in. Some you may see a lot. Some may not respond to your emails. But to them, you will always be, firstly and fore-mostly, their small group leader."


As camp crimson progressed, the campers became as wild and pumped as I was -- they were all excited to be Sooners. One of my girls, Jenna Hinckfoot, said she was already gunning for a small group leader spot next year. And I'd like to think that's because of the impact I had on them in two short days.

And because of that, I want to be a part of your lives. There is so much I still want to teach you, but more importantly, there is so much I want to learn from you.

So, that being said, I would like to change the first words I said to my campers. Maybe they won't all be reading it, but you are -- and perhaps you can find something in in my words that God wanted you to find.

Some of you may be excited to be here. Some of you, this transition terrifies you, and you may be carrying baggage -- no one is coming in a clean slate, and that's okay. Baggage isn't a burden; it's a reminder of where we came from. I guarantee you though, that if you give this new experience a chance -- if you are intentional, seek out opportunity, and let nothing hold you back -- Camp Crimson, and this first year of college, will be the ride of your life. I can only hope I will be fortunate enough to be with you for at least part of your Sooner journey during the next four years.

And thank you, thank you, thank you for letting me be part of your journey these past few days. You've impacted me more than I can express through one blog post.

Thank you for letting me welcome you to your new home -- I think you all are going to like it here.

 Nathan Robertson


(p.s. -- Shout out to a camper by the name of Mark. I talked to you only in brief moments, but people were chanting your name all week, so you must be great. We're glad to have you here.)