CAMP - DAY 2

After the lunch session, I came back to the room for a nap, but it didn't take. I checked in w/ Jinkins and we talked a bit about the concert Wednesday night and what we wanted to play.

Threw on my exercise clothes and decided to take a walk around the camp. It's been quite a while since I was here last, I didn't really remember the layout very well. In the course of the walk, I found a Prayer Trail - I'm sure every camp has one, but it's still a pretty cool thing.

So, I turned off my music and decided to hike back into the woods. This trail was a little different, primarily because at different points along the walk, campers present and past had placed their camp necklaces and papers all along the walk. There was a large sheet from 2004 where students had painted their praise to God. There were ripped and worn notes written on construction paper saying things like:

Hope God is working in You! Jr. High Camp 2005 and God Rocks.

But then I started seeing crosses. Everywhere. And not just wooden slats nailed together, but locations along the trail where kids had organized sticks or twigs or pine cones into the shape of a cross. Initially, it bothered me because it echoed what is, in my opinion, one of Methodism's great flaws - symbolism over substance.

But I couldn't be upset for long, because it's as if God just opened my eyes to whole new perspective. Here I was seeing the product of a focused heart. These little pine-cone crosses were evidence of kids who, for at least this week, were seeing the cross everywhere. Remembering redemption in a celebration of some of God's best work - nature itself.

I don't think much about the cross when I'm in the woods. That bothers me. Every massive pine and oak stretching into the skies is a reminder that God is a redeemer. These trees that just seven months ago were thin and pale and stripped by the winter now bloom with abandon because the Artist-Redeemer has built it that way. And that's the God I serve - a God who is faithful to redeem me. Whenever I need it. I should think about the cross more - talk about it more - draw it - make it out of pine cones - whatever - because it represents the very thing I've chosen to live my life for.