"Home to stay..."

"…When every town looks just the same
When every choice gets hard to make
When every map is put away
Then I'll be bringing you back
Home to stay…"
-     Josh Groban

Coming across South Park…on my way to camp three weeks ago…I was reminded of a similar day in 1997 when I brought our daughter "home" to camp.  We had moved the year before, traveling by Jeep and Ryder moving truck 2,000 miles East.  This was not an easy move…is there such a thing?  And the promise of flying back to Colorado for camp was what gave our hearts hope.

We landed at Denver International Airport late that June morning and within an hour we were in our rental car…just the two of us…heading southwest down Hwy 285 towards the Arkansas Valley.  It was a perfect Colorado day.  Bright blue skies overhead…dark black clouds to the west promising crisp evenings and cool nights for sleeping.

Camp has always been my heart's home.  I think of it as the place where even though I "work" 24/7 while I am there, it is also the geographical location that best articulates where, as Hymn 297 from the Christian Science Hymnal says, 

"…the dove may close her faltering wings…"

and not just my wings, but for every heart that seems to beat its wings madly searching for a place to rest…it is a place to call home….to just be.

And we were on our way there.  As we drove through the glade-like forest just west of Shawnee and past the toe-dipping waters of the rushing north fork of the South Platte River, I realized that I was already there…and had been all year long.

Camp was a place that existed in my heart.  I could recall every nook and cranny of Valerie Lodge, mentally run my fingers across the rough bark of the large evergreen just off my porch, sense the shifting sky as a storm approaches from the South…from right from behind the wheel of our rental car.

It was a remarkable realization.  To know that although I was in the process of driving to camp, there was a big part of my camp experience that I was taking to camp with me, packed in my heart…like the luggage in the trunk…to share with those I would be serving while I was there. 

My daughter and I each had gifts that we would be bringing with us, like care packages, to share with our friends…old and new.

We had memories of challenges overcome, healings experienced, friendships formed, resumed, and resurrected, of laughter shared and tears shed.  We were bringing our appreciation of this place to it, not waiting to be there to feel our appreciation for it.

I had this overwhelming sense that even if we were to turn the car around right there and then, never again crossing the cattle-guard onto camp property, nothing could take camp away from us as our hearts' home.  Camp lived in us.  Camp was never further away from us than our own hopes, our own desires, our own dreams.  

And these "memories" weren't just about a long-gone past…these were abiding, living, breathing present thoughts.  And more importantly, these very alive thoughts were constantly making a difference in my life.  They were, moment-by-moment, demanding new approaches to problem solving, requiring new ways of thinking about myself and others, providing new views of my relationship to the environment, my work, our world.  Camp and my thoughts, "memories", and experiences centered around camp and those glorious weeks in the mountains each summer are alive with purpose and potential every day throughout the year.

I have been thinking alot about that drive and my realization about the living presence of camp in my life…whether I am here in the Rockies or in my office near the Mississippi River…especially now that my daughter, and her friends,  have graduated from the days when camp was a "given" in their summer planning.   It gives me great comfort to know that if camp lives in her heart as a present place of joy…that I am there too.  We share this space within each of us called "camp"….it is a place we can return to whenever we want to mentally sit on the porch, look out over the lower 280, breathe in the vastness of God's beauty, hear the song of angels and hummingbirds…and open our hearts to the touch of His hand in our lives. Whether we are actually "on property" or somewhere else this summer by choice, circumstance, or "just because", camp lives in us. There is no "camp" without our love and appreciation for what it means to us, what it has done in our lives (and the lives of our children, friends and loved ones), and how it lives in our hearts.

From camp,
Kate