It is a bit too cold right now to be thinking of camping, but I am anyway. The clear nights make for the perfect viewing of a sky full of stars. Throw in a campfire, chocolate, graham crackers and marshmallows for s’mores and we are good to go.
We have enjoyed camping all through our marriage. During our first year of marriage Amy and I drove out to Yellowstone to rough it for a couple of weeks. We packed a pup tent, a pound of bacon, a change of shorts and tee-shirts. After one week, however, we headed home because we nearly froze to death in the middle of June! I had no idea that it could possibly be cold anywhere in the United States during the month of June.
What makes camping so fun is that you are mobile. All you need is a tent (and you don’t really need that) and a good map (which I usually ignore – it’s a man thing). Most everything else you need to enjoy a few days in the woods should fit right on your back. Mobility and flexibility is the key to happy camping.
Not a bad metaphor for the faith. A faith on the move…going places. It is too bad so many are content with just staying put in their relationship with God. Never changing, never growing, never blossoming into anything more. Like water, such a faith is in mortal danger of stagnation. Water that is not allowed a place to flow becomes putrid and useless. That is why you hear me speak so often of our faith as a journey, or pilgrimage. As the people of God we lean across the next horizon for the opportunity, the next possibility.
Let’s break camp and move on – a church on the go, a people on the move and God who is out there in front.
Grace and Peace,
Greg
I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. (NRSV Isaiah 43:19)
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