IN FAITH
Reflections on Summer Camp
I started going to summer church camp as a camp counselor the year after I graduated from seminary in 1978. For those of us who are United Methodist, I was a counselor at Senior High Institute that summer at Epworth Forest in North Webster, and I became involved in the camping program of North Indiana Conference of the United Methodist Church from that point on.
I had been on a retreat in college at a camp called Camp Loucon (short for Louisville Annual Conference) in Kentucky, and was absolutely wowed the first time I saw the Milky Way in all of its blazing glory, like a white carpet spread across the skies, which were absolutely pitch black. I had never seen the skies like that before, having grown up in the Chicago metropolitan area, with all of the “light pollution” which is generated by the lights in that area. Because of that light, only some of the very brightest stars can be seen. But, not so at Camp Loucon. It was very dark as we walked from the cabin to the dining hall, where we were going to have our evening devotion.
For me, it was one of those “ah ha!” God moments, which occasionally turns on the light inside of us. I began to see the world differently, with all of its beauty and its complexity.
Later, as I was reading the Bible, I came across Psalm 8, which says, “O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. {2} Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark because of your foes, to silence the enemy and the avenger. {3} When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; {4} what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? {5} Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor. {6} You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet, {7} all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, {8} the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. {9} O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” (Psalms 8 NRSV)
With that introduction to God’s glory at Camp Loucon I began to understand that life is not a mistake (God is the great architect—a true artist and creator) and that the universe in all of its complexity has been made for us. We must remember that in the creation stories in the book of Genesis, human beings were placed in a garden. In fact, the phrase “Garden of Eden” means “garden of delight.” And it speaks to God’s intentions toward the human race: God intended to create for us a world of unbelievable beauty—and we were called to “tend the garden,” which is the basis of what stewardship is about.
I would encourage persons to make time to find that garden or summer camp and to encounter the glory of God. When one realizes that God has made such a wonder for us, the next step is to see that in Jesus Christ, who was sent to be our Savior, God has sent one to restore to us that which was lost when the human race through Adam and Eve sinned in the garden and rebelled against God. Adam and Eve were evicted from the garden and lost paradise. But, in Jesus Christ, God restored that to us.
My prayer for you, if you were a camper this summer is that sometime during that week at camp, whether church camp or scouts or another organization, you came face to face with God’s glory, that your life will never be quite the same. Most of all, I hope you saw or will see the deep love behind creation, and most of all through the giving of God’s Son, Jesus Christ.
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