For a few summers, I worked at Lutheran Memorial Camp (now HopeWood Pines) in Fulton, OH, about 40 miles north of Columbus. With a couple of those June-August stints, I served as a camp counselor to mostly middle-school aged youth with a few elementary and high school groups thrown in as well. They would come Sunday afternoons and leave by Friday after lunch. And yet, within those six days, attachments unexplainably develop. Even as an early twenty-something with some selfish tendencies, to be sure, it doesn’t take long to be thoroughly convinced that you would do absolutely anything for the betterment of those youth.
Some of them came up that long winding path to the main camp with some shy and not-overly-excited-to-be-there tendencies, but we were going to do everything we could to help them feel comfortable: not just with us camp counselors or their other campers or the natural surroundings, but with God. Whether it was through arts and crafts or swimming or hiking or Bible studying or singing, we were going to try to find the sweet soulful spot to hopefully give them the space to be themselves: to fully take advantage of the opportunity for personal and spiritual development. We were going to do whatever we could to help them find the words to honestly share their faith in any way they felt comfortable, regardless of it being in front of scores of children in an outdoor chapel or just in the cabin with a few others or walking through the woods with a group. We were going to do whatever we could to help them know that the Gospel was not reserved for the adults on Sunday morning, but for every day of their life wherever they went.
But now…I don’t have the words. None at all. Of course, the heartbreaking news over the last few days from Texas is not just about Camp Mystic, but the surrounding areas just as affected by raging floods. But I join with the chorus of humanity devasted not just over children ripped away from the living, but the counselors, too. The counselors who develop attachments of wanting to do absolutely anything for the betterment of those youth in spite of any desire for personal gain of doing whatever else for the summer months…and then this happens. This happens not just to the parents of those children. This happens to the parents of the counselors, too. There are no words whatsoever.
Amidst all the heroic stories intertwined with the devastating ones, there was one about a young girl who sang camp songs as she waited to be rescued. Such a story is an unexplainable combination of soul-wrenching and beautiful and sad and hope-filled. The refrain that entered the forefront of my mind was one we sung most often around a campfire before we headed back to our cabins for the night:
Lord prepare me
To be a sanctuary
Pure and holy
Tried and true
And with thanksgiving
I’ll be a living
Sanctuary, for You.
I’ll be the first to admit I don’t completely agree with the theology conveyed by the song. We shouldn’t be trying to shape young people into believing they need to be “pure and holy,” but to instead proclaim that the Lord has already “prepared” them from the beginning as a thoroughly cherished child of God with all the love and faith and Holy Spirit they need to last an eternal lifetime. And hopefully camps and churches and families and schools and teams and whatever else can do their part in raising the awareness of that Gospel that applies as much to them as anyone else.
I also never agree with the theology that sometimes creeps into these devastating stories: that such events happen for a reason, or that God needed further scores of angels in heaven. What happened to these children, to these counselors, to these families, to these towns, to this world is absolutely terrible. And the living ones are more than entitled to anger and frustration and pain and anguish and whatever else that comes along with such a tragedy. We do not always need the words to somehow tamper that collective emotion down.
But we do have a sanctuary in Jesus Christ, who is more than willing to not just go into floodwaters, but be alongside the riverbank while others uncontrollably weep. We have a sanctuary who is more than willing to take on death to usher all onto the shores of the life with no more pain or sorrow or anguish. But, in the meantime, we will forever cling to the young sanctuaries still living among us: the young sanctuaries who provide their fair share of joy and laughter and wander and new life and even the very Gospel itself. God be with them all! Amen.
In Christ,
Pastor Brad