September 2024

One of the most beautiful things about camp, I’ve always felt, is how fleeting it is.  There’s freedom in the fact that it’s temporary, that it’s a step away from the ordinary rhythms that govern our everyday lives.  There’s space for weirdness that doesn’t normally fit.  For loudness.  For messiness.  For passion and creativity and community and love.
 
That freedom means we can experience new ways of being and can stretch our wings in ways we might not be able to access in other settings.  We’re surrounded by people we don’t really know and who, for the most part, we won’t see regularly after this week in God’s home in the woods.  The risks we might take are a little less scary, or at least the consequences have less staying power. You might say that camp leaves room for a unique form of grace.  And because of that grace, I’ve always thought of camp as a place where I could meet the person that God is growing me to be, to steal a quick peek into what it means to live as the wholeheartedly faithful child of God I aspire to be.  For that reason, I was always a little sad when it was time to leave Bethelwoods…and a little jealous of the “Camp Paul” that I left behind there.
 
Because the downside of camp’s temporary nature is that it eventually ends, usually before we’re ready to say goodbye.  Of course, in the moment, we can often feel exhausted and overstimulated, and a bit homesick.  But at the end of it, I always found myself wishing I could go back.  I was always left with a sense of incompleteness, with the feeling that there was more to the story that I didn’t have time to explore.
 
I’m glad to report that this feeling– that my camp journey isn’t complete– has changed over the last year for two reasons.  The first was getting to meet a camper ten years after I had been their counselor:  as a part of my first job out of seminary, I’ve been doing campus ministry work at UNC-Chapel Hill, and one of the students in the campus ministry (they graduated last year) recognized me from my first years as a counselor, about a decade ago.
 
I can’t tell you what a beautiful gift it was to have someone who had shared those summer moments of freedom, to see for myself the growth of this goofy camper into a compassionate, kind, wise, and thoughtful college graduate…to someone who I’m SO proud of and excited to continue the work of the Church with.  It was such a gift to see the full realization of the person that they had got to catch a glimpse of at camp and to peek into God’s plan for their future.  To share with them a reflection on how we had both grown was an unlooked-for blessing.
 
My gratitude for this gift was renewed by the second thing– I returned to camp for the first time as a worship leader, a dream I had held since first setting foot in Bethelwoods in 2012.  Not only that, but I had the chance to reminisce and reflect, to see the flourishing of all the seeds God had planted, in seeing so many counselors and summer staff I remember as campers.  I got to glimpse, again and again, the sacred and life-filled ways that so many of us have lived and loved and grown together.
 
My prayer this week is that you might catch similar glimpses, that you might feel the freedom to dream, to see the person God is molding you into…and also to look back with pride on the beautiful, wild, and holy roads that you have already traversed.
 
May you see God’s hand in all of it.

- Reverend Paul Burgess, Cary Presbyterian Church