I’ve been visiting Camp Cross for over 10 years. We attended a Labor Day Family Camp with our St. James’ (Pullman, WA) parishioners and I enjoyed the glorious natural beauty, but also the fellowship among the participants. Christian community in a non-parish setting is one feature of Camp Cross that has me reminding others to “keep comin’ back! “

While wading at Crescent Beach, my wife Alison relayed her metaphor for her relationship to God.  In the cool water, she floats effortlessly.  As she returns to the rocky shore, her body becomes heavy as she leaves the (holy) water and works to carry herself. It’s harder and harder to gain ones footing.  Yet, a loving arm reaches out to help her gain stability. This arm is God’s love in the form of your loving friend. Together, you can walk the journey on hot, dry land, until you once again return to refreshing water for relief.

Additionally, Camp Cross is a holy place where I have seen miracles happen.  Of course, miracles are in the eyes of the beholder and subject to perspective. This week I have seen the miracle of change. Mid-high campers arrived on Sunday, with anxiety, fears and few friends. In just a few days, I have seen them transformed. They’ve bonded with each other, shared intense experiences, been challenged in their views of faith and even improved their table manners (yes, a great miracle indeed!).  In all seriousness, the joy shared in a small group or gathered around a summer campfire is a holy miracle repeated again and again here.  I’ve noticed another transforming miracle recently.  As I look at this year’s staff members, several have spent many years coming to Camp Cross. They’ve loved being a camper with all the newness that experience brings. Camp Cross can be an intense emotional experience of faith on a young person’s own terms, far from their parish home.  It’s their mountaintop where they gain spiritual insight. Some grow into being a counselor, learning leadership skills shepherding a small group.  This is a critical stage in the faith formation of young people. Of that group, some continue serving as permanent staff members, gaining more leadership skills at the next level, long after coming to Camp Cross for the first time.  This chain of transformative experiences shapes the lifelong faith of many.

Wednesday night, we used a meditation from Taize to focus in the darkness of the cool evening, sitting on a floating dock.  Many relaxed on their backs, pondering the universe, gazing up into the vast expanse of stars. Some reported seeing up to five shooting stars and several orbiting satellites were visible.  Amid the cool breeze, surrounded by both intimate friends and endless cosmos, God is good; Very good; Always.

The Holliston Town Hall, where they were married, though it was not so decked out in Fourth of July decor at the time. Image from the Holliston Town website.

Last weekend, I was in Boston with all my friends from college because our friends Jeffrey and Julia were getting married.  The wedding was in the style of the Quakers, which means it was part of a Meeting for Worship.  If you don’t know, the way Quakers meet for worship is they all sit together in silence for a while, and if somebody is moved to speak, he does.  There is no liturgy or anything, just people sitting together.  I worshiped with the Quakers for a summer, and all the meetings I have been to were at Pendle Hill.  They were about half an hour or an hour long, and usually only one or two people would get up to speak.  (Sometimes Quakers have programmed meetings; they work differently, but I have never been to one so I don’t know what they are like).

Anyway, the way the wedding worked is, we all sat there quietly for about twenty or thirty minutes, and then Jeff and Julia got up, exchanged their vows, and exchanged rings.  After that, people began to get up and say things: about marriage, about the two of them, about growing up.  We hard stories about Jeff’s childhood, about Julia’s sister thinking Julia was crazy to get married already, and about seeing the relationship between the two of them.

This way of getting married was rather different from any wedding I had ever been to (I’ve been to a few: some of my aunts’ and uncles’ weddings, and the wedding of one of my mom’s friends; all were quite some time ago).  There was no minister, no flower girls, no readings, and no real pomp of any sort.  It was all pretty simple and low-key.  Well, that is in character for Jeff and Julia.  It was very different from anything Episcopalian, most obviously because there was no liturgy, just people getting up and speaking as they were moved.  It was different, but I think it was quite beautiful, hearing what everybody had to say to them.  Some if it might have seemed a bit inane, but it was all heartfelt.  It was particularly moving hearing my friends getting up and saying the things I felt but did not have the words for.

The tree swing we swung on.

For me and many of my friends, Jeff and Julia are the first of our friends to get married, so for us the wedding was not only a sign that the two of them were growing up, but also a sign that we were.  I remember when, the fall of our senior year, Jeff first asked us whether he ought to accept Julia’s proposal of marriage.  One or two of my friends and I ran off to the nearest tree swing to swing on it.  We were, we felt, not old enough for our friends to start getting married.  As time passed, though, it became more and more obvious that the two of them should get married, and if that meant we would all have to grow up a little, maybe that was not so bad after all.