Incubating Wonder

I spent an hour this morning in Bible study with elementary school kids, and we wondered together about all kinds of things, such as:

• Where did God come from?

• What new things is God up to?

• Why aren’t dinosaurs in the Bible?

• Why don’t schools have to hang the Sermon on the Mount on their walls if they have to have the 10 Commandments?

Those, and countless other questions, keep me coming back to this sanctuary in the woods outside of Richmond.

I don’t know what these children or their young-adult counselors will do with the time they are given, but I do know that camp is an incubator for ministry, broadly defined. I know environmental educators, municipal officials, nurses, and countless pastors whose sense of vocation was shaped by their experiences at Camp Hanover and other Presbyterian camps and conference centers across the country.

Like the broader church, camps are reinventing themselves these days in response to sweeping cultural changes. Oh, and climate changes, too, as all of the outdoor activities that I took for granted have to be thought through differently in light of an overheated planet.

I trust, always, that the effort put into our camp programs for children and youth, results in more faithful and compassionate adults. I’m sure it’s not true in each case, but I believe that a few of the kids who wrestled this week with the story of the daughters of Zelophehad (you can find it in Numbers) will emerge from their time at camp with a heightened sense of justice and a call to act on behalf of themselves and anyone else victimized by unfair systems.

Oh, and this morning’s devotions included an amazing performance by one little boy in drag. Don’t tell the conservatives on us, please. Seriously, please don’t.

Thanks again for the gift of this time away. It is always a time of renewal for me, and thus, I hope, always a gift that is returned to the larger church.

See you this weekend at Western, where I’ll no doubt still be scratching countless bug bites!