She is my hero. I want to tell the world that she can take a shower by herself, that she can go on a trailride, that she will help sweep the the bathhouse with a bit of coaxing. I want to call home and tell them that she let me float her on her stomach in the swimming pool, that she let me braid her hair for church, that her love for bananas no longer keeps her from eating anything else.
I met her last year, a bright eight-year-old who bopped noisily into my cabin and claimed her bunk for the week. I didn't really no what to do with a child with Aspergers, and neither did she know what to do with me, a new authority figure in her world who didn't allow stuffed animals to come to dinner time and who asked her to stay with the rest of the cabin. And so we spent our week in some sort of warfare, physical and spiritual, both of us with tears in our eyes, though tears of rather different sorts. But I wanted to see her again.
This summer, if anything, she waltzes into my cabin with more zest for life, ready to introduce her Webkins to me, telling me to close my eyes and simultaneously unzip her bulging suitcase. I half expect the contents to burst out at me like a well-wound jack-in-the-box, well trained by their exuberant master.
I see immediately that she has grown. Her bright yellow sneakers are undoubtedly larger than last year's shoes, her figure a little taller. But throughout the week I watch as she initiates games with her cabinmates. I watch as she tries new food. I listen as she asks for prayer. I listen as she sings new songs she's learned. I feel her arm sneak around me in a hug at line call. Becky has grown. Something inside her has responded to love. Something inside her has awakened in response to the many prayers surrounding her presence at camp.
She's the one who gives me the words one Sabbath afternoon as the rest of the campers and I sit out on the porch, enjoying solitude and sunshine. "Hey--hey, do you want my signature?" she asks me, coming up with a stamp in hand. "Sure, Becky," I say, curious to see what will happen next. "You--you say. . . " she instructs me as to what I must ask her in order to receive the honor. Then I say what I've been dying to say all week: "Becky, Becky, can I have your signature?" And there on the yellow paper she plants her seal: the name JESUS inked in red and BECKY childishly scrawled below.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Camp Cherokee
And again: what can be said in a mere smattering of words that will adequately sum up a glorious six-and-a-half weeks at Camp Cherokee? 
Of course there were many fun things of which I shall litter about some documentation...
Slaloming for the first time
Lovely Algonquin
Muddifying my legs
Visiting friends and picking huckleberries
Rustling bulrushes while watching over baby Moses
Swampy ventures with good friends
Choco and croc larks fueled by yummy breakfasts
Teaching horse lessons with the assistance of our hooved staff
But that is not half of it, or at least it ought not to be. It is about a heart altar and full submission.
It is about quiet moments with God on the dock. It is about a unified staff. It is about friendship and brother to sister love. It is about trial and prayer and repaired bathhouses and fixed swimming pools and righted wells. It is about stories of changed lives.
And it is about these ones.
Especially this one.
And there will be more.
True Friendship is a Knott Which Angel Hands Have Tied
And so it has happened. The White and the Blue Nile have joined into the one Nile, a river flowing through a desert land, a great swell of water that is life and a blessing to those around it because of its mighty Source...
Yes, I have cried tears. A brilliant blue bridesmaid dress could not prevent them, and neither could a reunion with my whole family. But they are droplets shed for an era past, not of real sorrow--they are for my childhood, our childhood. We grow, we blossom, we move on. And it is the acculmulation of all those growth spurts and transplants and waterings and buddings that has led to this celebration of two lives led by God's caring fingers. And I think that it is just as much for the wonder of this new and happy journey, for my brother and new sister, that I cry--joyful tears.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Burnt Granola
That indescribable odor that picks up just where the fragrance of warm vanilla oats leaves off curled my nose hairs so violently this morning that it finally woke me up. I probably got downstairs in 2 seconds flat, less time than it takes me even when I hear a cat getting sick down in the living room. The heated mixture was out in another second and I stood grumbling my eyes at it in disbelief.
Such a small thing. Extra toasty granola, still edible, but little better than a chore to eat. They've always told us not to cry over spilled milk. And yet I found myself musing on my granola still by the time I left for work an hour or two later, and occasionally throughout the day. I oughtn't to say it is the waste that bothers me the most since I just told you that the granola was not burnt, merely much darker than I enjoy it. Neither am I distressed solely by the fact that my brother is returning from Bolivia in two days and that he deserves much better than conversation-deafening crunches for breakfast. Perhaps it is the dismay that such perfectly tasty ingredients--the right ones, the right proportions--can so miserably be turned into delightless fodder by the mistake of an extra hour's heat.
One good thing about chewing something for a while is that it eventually because soft enough to swallow. This morning I could hear only the noise of my burnt granola in my head-- the little pinch of a small failure-- but upon working on it most of the day, at least some extent of digestion occured.
As children we are taught that when we make mistakes we must suffer for them, and that, to a great extent, is true. If studies are neglected, 'A's do tend to be rather shy. If we take too much food, well, the polite thing is to finish it. If we stay up too late, we will be tired in the morning. We are trained to believe that we will "pay" if we do something wrong. Life has therefore taught us that if we do something foolish like burning our granola, we must suffer through it and eat it until the very final toasted oat breaks between our teeth and makes its way through our bodies.
And yet, what are we as humans but perfectly wholesome ingredients gone awry? We are chosen, created, prepared, grown, nourished, perfected, confirmed, strengthened--and then we go and burn our granola. We rebel. We backbite. We scorn. But here is where the life-long lessons of justice are spun until their limbs are splayed out and then set shaking and confused on the ground: God doesn't work like life. God is merciful. As we recognize that we have burnt our granola, He is the one in the bakery, turning on the oven to just the right temperature, lovingly making us a whole new batch with His warm hands, and showing us how to do better next time.
Such a small thing. Extra toasty granola, still edible, but little better than a chore to eat. They've always told us not to cry over spilled milk. And yet I found myself musing on my granola still by the time I left for work an hour or two later, and occasionally throughout the day. I oughtn't to say it is the waste that bothers me the most since I just told you that the granola was not burnt, merely much darker than I enjoy it. Neither am I distressed solely by the fact that my brother is returning from Bolivia in two days and that he deserves much better than conversation-deafening crunches for breakfast. Perhaps it is the dismay that such perfectly tasty ingredients--the right ones, the right proportions--can so miserably be turned into delightless fodder by the mistake of an extra hour's heat.
One good thing about chewing something for a while is that it eventually because soft enough to swallow. This morning I could hear only the noise of my burnt granola in my head-- the little pinch of a small failure-- but upon working on it most of the day, at least some extent of digestion occured.
As children we are taught that when we make mistakes we must suffer for them, and that, to a great extent, is true. If studies are neglected, 'A's do tend to be rather shy. If we take too much food, well, the polite thing is to finish it. If we stay up too late, we will be tired in the morning. We are trained to believe that we will "pay" if we do something wrong. Life has therefore taught us that if we do something foolish like burning our granola, we must suffer through it and eat it until the very final toasted oat breaks between our teeth and makes its way through our bodies.
And yet, what are we as humans but perfectly wholesome ingredients gone awry? We are chosen, created, prepared, grown, nourished, perfected, confirmed, strengthened--and then we go and burn our granola. We rebel. We backbite. We scorn. But here is where the life-long lessons of justice are spun until their limbs are splayed out and then set shaking and confused on the ground: God doesn't work like life. God is merciful. As we recognize that we have burnt our granola, He is the one in the bakery, turning on the oven to just the right temperature, lovingly making us a whole new batch with His warm hands, and showing us how to do better next time.
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