Scruffy sent me a fascinating article from The Huff Post this week. It concerned Kim John Payne’s book, Simplicity Parenting and the effect of an endless excess of activities and toys on the mental health of children. Payne noticed a similarity between the children in refugee camps that he worked with as a young man and affluent modern day youngsters he encountered in his private practice. 

“Payne conducted a study in which he simplified the lives of children with attention deficit disorder. Within four short months 68 per cent went from being clinically dysfunctional to clinically functional. The children also displayed a 37 per cent increase in academic and cognitive aptitude, an effect not seen with commonly prescribed drugs like Ritalin.”

So there you have it, research to back up what my mom told my brother and I so many times growing up. “Just go outside.” Whenever we started to argue or gripe or complain of boredom, she would hurry us out the door for some good old-fashioned unstructured play.

This article notes that–“Even two hours per week of unstructured play boosted children’s creativity to above-average levels.”

I can’t help but smile as I picture the summer camp schedule in my head. There are chapel times, structured games, and meal times of course, but also free time and station time where kids mosey around the camp grounds playing mini golf, archery, and ping pong. There is the chance to dunk a counselor in the dunk tank or take a turn on the slip-n-slide, but also time to walk through the meadow and look at flowers and bugs, to listen to bird song, and to collect great armfuls of lichen for no apparent reason whatsoever. Camp contains clear times of unstructured play. Simple things, but important nonetheless. Friends, food, and the beauty of the outdoors. These are some of the best things of life.

So what about you?

When was the last time you made things simple, went outside, and just enjoyed all the beauties that God has made? Apparently, God designed us to need the simple things in life and of that I am glad. A walk in the woods, a tree fort build out of old plywood, or watching a beetle skitter across the path. I for one, would not want  to miss out.

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When someone comes to camp as a camper, it is our goal to pour ourselves out for them as a sacrifice and service to our Lord. God is certainly pleased with our small efforts, but His goals are so much more vast and fabulous than what we can imagine. Scruff and I realized this anew as we sat in church the other day, listening to one of our former campers as he preached the sermon.

A number of years ago I wrote about a particular week of Sr. High camp that was especially meaningful. One of our conselors, Frodo, was hoping that his little brother could be a camper. The problem, Ryan was confined to a wheelchair. How could they navigate the rough and tumble of camp with Ryan wheelchair bound?

For the full story go ahead and click back in time and read HERE.

Ryan is in his twenties now. He did indeed come to camp. He also went to college and is mentoring others in the Lord. Occasionally we will see him at church when we visit Mid Valley Baptist in Dryden. Scruffy and I packed up the boys and attended church in Dryden the other day since they had given him the chance to speak about camp. We saw Ryan and his parents in the front pew. They rushed over to exchange hugs and exclaimed, “We didn’t know you would be here this week!” Unbeknownst to us, Ryan was the guest speaker.

So there we were, being taught and ministered to by a young man who had been our camper. We sat in rapt attention as Ryan preached, learning from his journey and his study of God’s word. Full circle.

You find out pretty quick, as a camp counselor, that the children teach you so much. You come expecting to give and teach and impart some of yourself. You leave realizing how small you are when standing before the vast expanse of God’s glory at work. They teach you, these children. When they are young and later as they grow strong and tall in the Lord.

A kid who appeared to require so much assistance from us, was the one who ministered to us, then and now. Sure, the guys lifted his wheelchair over logs and dragged him up that mountainside. But Ryan’s story is just humming with the power of God. Power that we cannot quantify or explain. Power that we must simply stand back and observe, clutching at our hearts and hoping that we will walk away in one piece, or if not in one piece, perhaps in a better arrangement of pieces than what we were before. From something that at first appears to be a stance of weakness, God can bring about the kind of victory that just blasts you off your feet.  Our expectations are constantly being shattered by all that God can do. To hear Ryan’s complete sermon click HERE and remember that God walks among us in all His glorious splendor and gentle love. To Him, the miracle is the mundane. 

Boo Boo

I love happy endings. Sunshine breaking through the trees and glittering across the snow. Love and laughter and wrongs made right. But I realized something remarkable as I was reading the other day. I was finishing up Book 12, the last of a longstanding Middle Grade series. Much peril and victory had occurred and it looked like the series was finally going to have a happy ending. I wanted a happy ending, I really really did. Yet, I was just a teensey bit disappointed. What was wrong? What was missing from this fun and fabulous conclusion full of tension and victory?

And then, unexpectedly, someone you loved, someone you didn’t even realize that you loved, died. They died sacrificially, to save another, to make up for the fact that they hadn’t been able to save someone else, long long ago. That was when I realized something important.

Someone has to die.

It doesn’t even have to be an actual death, a death to themselves, their dreams and wishes. But whether it is a metaphorical death or the character truly giving their life, someone has to die. Our sense of art and story demand a sacrifice.

Why is that?

Could it be that all stories speak of the great story? There are certain elements that must be present for a reader to walk away from a tale satisfied. Could it be that those vital elements of story come from the story that is told all around us. A story of creation and decay, of love and betrayal and sacrifice. Is God’s quest for our affection, God’s terrible journey through Hell and back to rescue us, the pattern for art upon our deepest self?

I think so.

And not only art but life as well. What is it that we ask of our summer staff every summer? What do we train towards as we gather young people and prepare them for a summer of ministry to children. We ask them to die. Die to self and live for others. We push the counselors to reach out if they are shy, to hike and play in the meadow if they aren’t athletic, to sit quietly and listen if they are active. To die.

What is it that God has asked of each of us, every day? Yes, we all seek a happy ending. God has promised us a happy ending. But there is also death and sacrifice. Someone must die. He for us, and us, as we follow Him.

Matthew 16:4–“Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.'”

Boo Boo

One of our rental camps moved from January to March unexpectedly, leaving an open weekend. Not wanting the beautiful new snow to go to waste, Scruffy planned a snow day for camp counselors and other staff as well as children from our boys’ school. There is just something about a sledding party.

Camp counselors gathered at a round table in the camp lodge, playing board games in front of a crackling fire. Kids from our sons’ schools piled into their snow clothes and followed my up the mountainside along with their Dads and Moms. I found a spot where I could see both the top and bottom of the tube hill and spent the next two hours shouting myself hoarse telling the kiddos at the top whether it was clear at the bottom and safe to go. Parents held tubes for kids so they could settle themselves securely before rocketing down the hill. The tubers bounced downhill, rattling their teeth, and gaining a frosting of ice as it sprayed off the run and coated their eyebrows. Screams echoed across the mountain until chattering with cold, the kids all made their way down the trail to the camp lodge for cookies and cocoa. 

It’s not an intense chapel session or a midnight sing-a-long at Inspiration Point. But there is something about a sledding party. A chance for a teen to hang out with friends in a place where they are loved. A day for a kid to get out with his family, to laugh and play and meet new people. A child stretching to do a new activity, something that they haven’t dared before. There is great value in these simple things, plus a whole lot of good old fashioned fun. So no, despite the moved rental group, the fresh snow was not wasted at all.

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Scruffy and I were in the worship service at church the other day. He looked over at me and asked: “Do you think that’s true?”

I paused. The line of the song said: “Earth has no sorrow that Heaven can’t cure.” Now both Scruffy and I have weathered our share of sorrow, Scruff more than most. Were we cured when we came to Christ? My spirit, soaring with the beauty of the song, said “Yes!” My heart, broken and changed and weighed down by the tragedies that we have seen said “No!” 

“Yes and No,” I told him. I still stand by that answer.

We see so many kids walk through the doors at camp. Innocence and joy, exuberance and fun, sorrow and heartbreak. So many children. So many stories. Some that would make you weep.

That song reminded me of the movie, Star Trek 5. Not the best of the Star Trek movies by far, but thought provoking. Spock’s brother, a strange priest character with the power to remove pain from the human heart, is gathering a mob of incredibly peaceful followers. Several of the Enterprise’s crew let him work his magic and are eerily happy with the results. But Captain Kirk refuses. “I need my pain. My pain makes me who I am!”

And what of God? Is He like Spock’s brother, washing the heart and human psyche clean of every wound? Is He like Kirk, who believes that to erase the stain of life would be to erase what a soul has become? I have mentioned this before, but I think this verse says it best.

Matthew 25:26b–“So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed?”

In the parable of the talents, the lazy servant is afraid of his fierce master, who “harvests where he has not sown and gathers where he has not scattered seed.” Now, every analogy breaks apart at some point. Perhaps this is the part of the parable that does not describe God. How can it? That doesn’t seem very honest . . . and yet. I have seen God harvesting faith, love, hope, peace, joy, patience . . . all of the fruits of the Spirit out of troubles and situations that God did not plant. God does not sin and He does not tempt people to sin and yet, out of the terrible tragedy of this dark and stormy world, He brings forth an amazing harvest.

And so my answer is still “Yes and No.”

Yes, I have found healing in God. No, I will never be the same after walking through the valley of the shadow of death. I am changed. But while I would throw the sorrow away in an instant, I do not wish to erase the strength I have gained, the understanding I now carry, the good that has come about. I think God can do incredible things with a blackened, devastated field that he did not sow with hurt. He is not above swooping in like a pirate and taking an abundant harvest from even such a terrible place. He can work miracles with the most broken and desolated of souls. I have seen it with my own eyes. Look around. Look within. Perhaps you have seen it too.

Boo Boo