Jesus took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.
On Thursday morning I took a shower, and when I was done, I headed over to breakfast. I did not know it at the time, but I had left my watch in the Shalom bathroom.
Breakfast, at the Horton Center, is a lively affair. I was sitting inside the Spirit Lodge nursing a cup of coffee, trying to get my bearings, when the bell in the compound clanged three times.
The hoppers came tumbling in.
What, you ask, is a hopper?
Before each meal, a designated group of campers is assigned the task of coming fifteen minutes early to do all the setup for the meal. This is the hearty crew that take pride in calling themselves “hoppers.” Their responsibilities do not end when the tables are set up. They will also be the ones to get more food from the kitchen counter when required, and they will also be the agents of a superbly choreographed cleanup when the meal is over.
I get out of the way to allow the Hoppers to hop.
Being thus displaced is a welcome development. My retreat is the Madison Porch (AKA MadPo) – a wide veranda that runs the length of the lodge where the bleary-eyed drinker of coffee can meet the morning in the lap of a dignified Adirondack chair positioned just-so to pay homage to the adjacent peak, visible through a break in the trees.
This is a rare moment of solitude to be savored. Another volunteer counselor or staff member might quietly slip into another Adirondack chair, but beyond the customary good mornings there is an unstated culture of peace in this space. Perhaps it is the influence of the distant mountain. The bustle and yell of the fussing hoppers provide a pleasant backdrop, when one is thus established in an Adirondack chair, sipping a warm cup of Joe beneath the august profile of Mt Madison.
Madison’s rocky outcrop is tall enough to spend much of its time hidden in the clouds. This morning it is clearly visible. Unlike our beloved Monadnock, which rises, a solitary promontory, from the surrounding lowlands, Madison’s summit emerges from a collection of lesser peaks that stand around it like little brothers and sisters in a family photo.
Horton center has a wealth of vistas where a camper can encounter the vast sweep of the mountains in all their stirring majesty. The most impressive of these are Chapel Rock and Pinkham Ledge.
Speaking of Chapel Rock… when breakfast is over, we will head up there for “Morning Watch,” the short worship service that will set the tone for the rest of the day.
But first, it’s time to clean up our cabin.
Jesus said: “everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”
I share a cabin with one other volunteer counselor and three boys of high school age. These boys have grown up coming to Horton Center, so they know the drill, and to my utter amazement, they are not bored. They are not all-knowing. I cannot detect an ounce of the aloof disinterest that I have so often encountered among high school students who protect themselves by keeping all passion and interest at a steady arms length. These boys have somehow managed to navigate adolescence without losing their child-like excitement. They are not “too cool for school.” They can have fun without being embarrassed by the fact that they are having fun.
Can you believe that they can have fun cleaning the cabin? Cabin cleanliness is a camp wide contest. Judges will come through and see how orderly everything is. There is a “creativity” component that the boys put their minds too with gusto, turning the broom into a mascot and dressing it up.
The bell clangs. It is time to gather for Morning Watch. On the way over to the compound, a scrawny youth of 13 years of age runs up to me. I know he is 13 because I heard him tell it to some other kids at dinner last night. He told them, quite matter of factly, that he was the shortest kid in his grade.
“I haven’t hit my growth spurt yet…” he said.
The girls at the table, who, incidentally, had hit their growth spurts, nodded in sympathy.
“It’s alright,” one of them said, “it’ll happen.”
I couldn’t believe my ears! Had I been abducted in my sleep and taken to a different planet? Since when does a boy not get mercilessly mocked for being too short?
Anyway, this kid, the very same, ran up to me as I was headed to gather for Morning watch.
“Hey Mark” says he.
“Yes.”
“Did you leave your watch in the Shalom bathroom?”
“Oh,” I said, clutching my watch free wrist.
“I gave it to my counselor,” he said, and sprinted off.
Chapel Rock is a short walk from the camp’s central compound. The beginning of the trail is marked by a sign that audaciously declares: “Chapel Rock: A Pathway to God.” When I first saw that sign, I met it with my characteristic skepticism. “Really?” I thought as I clambered up the side of a small hill. Should we be giving young people the impression that God’s presence is available at such a meager cost as this?
And then I reached the spot… and it was like “Oh!”
Unlike Madison porch, which affords a civilized view of the mountain through a carefully maintained corridor of trees, Chapel Rock is something else altogether. It is a wild spot, a naked outcrop that opens to a wide panorama. Take more than a dozen steps and you will have gone too far, and stepped into the vast gulf of air that lies between yourself and the opposite ridge of mountains.
The daily lives of the unsuspecting young campers who set foot here for the first time are, in all likelihood, dominated by an activity that they, in an example of ironic self-awareness, call “doomscrolling.” These youngsters have been observed, recorded, timed and evaluated since they were in the cradle, and lest they are not already subjected to enough of this, they are trained to do it to themselves, and to post the results for an increasingly mean-spirited online world to judge on instagram and other such predatory social media platforms. This strange, shifting reality is the stuff of their identity – they measure their self worth according to the unpredictable currency of the “likes” of their peers.
This is the childhood (if you can call it that) that we have given them…
…if your child asked for a fish, Jesus asked… would you give a snake instead?
This is the child – this is the young person who has been given snakes – who steps out of the woods, out onto Chapel Rock.
And here…. where the wide wooded valleys of the North country sweep elegantly up the slopes of Mount Moriah… here where the peaks of the Carter range move steadily into the expansive distance, their imaginations, habitually choked by screens and fiber-optic cables, are confronted with something… something that, in its spiritual purity, displaces all the clutter.
Here, they experience awe.
Here, they become aware that there is no photograph, no nature documentary, no spectacularly produced YouTube drone footage – that can account for the pure astonishment of being present, and feeling – not seeing, but feeling the immeasurable, boundless dimension of wide open space.
‘Let the little children come to me;” Jesus says. “Do not stop them!”
**
The morning was exceptionally clear, so I couldn’t help tarrying for a few minutes after Morning Watch, to take in the view from Chapel Rock. By the time I got back down to the compound, the kid and his counselor were not to be found, so I determined to retrieve my watch later, and headed over to rendezvous with my group which had congregated by spirit lodge. They were getting gear together. We were going to spend the day hiking up to the Hermit Lakes Shelter.
On my way, another youngster ran up to me. It was not the scrawny kid. It was a girl this time.”
“Hi Mark!”
“Hi!”
“Did you get your watch?”
“No… do you know…”
But she was already gone.
**
It was an amazing day. We began with a worship service on Chapel Rock, we went on a satisfying hike that ended with a dip in Emerald Pool, a beautiful swimming hole. Now, to top it all off, we were going to have a vespers service and sleep out on Pinkham Ledge.
Since I had brought my guitar, I had been providing musical accompaniment during the worship services. One of the Deans asked me to sing a lullaby out at Pinkham, so when I got back to camp, I went back to my cabin to get my guitar. The bell rang again… one two three. It was time to gather back at the compound.
On the way, I ran into the counselor – the one who was supposed to have my watch…
“I brought it to the main office,” he said.
There is a problem that I have had with places like Horton Center. Coincidentally, it is the same problem that I tend to have with some scripture passages – like the one from the Gospel of Luke that (____) read for us.
In the passage Jesus makes a series of bold statements:
he says…
Ask, and it will be given to you;
He does not say, “Ask, and it might be given to you”
He says Ask, and it will be given to you;
Again, he says:
search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.
As a minister, I am wary of these statements. They make me nervous. Why? Well the long and short of it is this – Jesus can say these things, if he so chooses, but I cannot.
Even though Jesus seems confident – and even though I, as his follower, am attentive to the truth of what he says, I cannot, in good conscience, tell a person who is on his deathbed, that if he asks God to be healed, that he will be healed.
He might be healed.
But I cannot say he will be healed.
Like you, I want to believe that all those who search will find what they are looking for; I would like to affirm that all those who knock on a door will find the door opened for them – but I simply can’t make those promises. My human experience does not allow me to do so. I have seen too many people crying out in desperation.
I do not want to give false hope to people who are in pain. To do so might very likely make their pain even worse. If they asked for something, and it was not given, they might think that they are abandoned by God.
In the past, I have applied this same logic to places like Horton Center. I have been wary of churches and camps and Christian charities that present a picture of Jesus that seems just a little too rosy. In particular, I’ve been concerned by the way that many adults approach the difficult task of trying to make the gospel story palatable to young people. It has seemed to me that we may end up doing children a disservice if we offer them a Jesus who will simply grant their wishes – who will, as this morning’s scripture promises, always give them what they ask for. Jesus is not a Wallmart greeter. “Salvation? Oh you can find that in Aisle 23.” It’s not that easy. So we shouldn’t give them a false hope that will be inevitably dashed by the hard realities of life. The promise that everything will be good if I just give your heart to Jesus… has never worked for me. I have always been too much of a skeptic. Too much of a realist.
Up on Pinkham ledge, I took out my guitar and began playing as the kids excitedly set up their camp mats and positioned their sleeping bags. The scrawny kid from earlier came up to me.
“Did you get your watch back?”
“Not yet.”
We hoped for a clear night, and we got it. God’s expansiveness – The Milky Way – in all its mysterious immensity, was painted across the sky. The stars, as the poet Robert Service wrote, were “dancing heel to toe.”
And as I lay there, I knew that this week at Horton had changed me.
To be sure, I still have a concern about offering spiritual promises that I cannot deliver…
But having our eyes open does not require us to be skeptics – to assume that life will inevitably devolve into suffering. That is not the only conclusion that can be made about life. We could just as easily affirm that the world is full of fresh and exciting possibilities.
The Pathway to God may begin as a trail through the woods, but the pathway to God is more than that. It begins by starting children off in life with a baseline of optimism. The pathway begins in a place where they experience care, so they can become caring. Give them a chance, and they will be excited before they have to be cool. Provide them with a vantage point, and they will confront the mystery that surrounds them… and be curious about the mystery that is within them.
Must we give our children snakes?
No.
They are asking for fish.
We do not prepare young people for a complicated world by saying “don’t worry, everything will be fine.” We give them a pathway to awe. We offer them a glimpse of something greater than themselves… and connect that great mystery with the reality that they are loved.
Loved for who they are.
Children ask us to give them safety, to give them confidence, to give them love. These requests can be read in their trusting eyes. Surely it is our responsibility – surely it is the fulfillment of our greatest joy, to give them that safety, that confidence and that love.
These are the doors we open. These are the paths they can take.
And because we are talking about love – it works both ways. It always does! Children care for and transform us too!
Did I finally get my watch back?
Yes, I did… but not without a lot of help from my young friends…
Amen.