reality check.

Summer is a magical time.

For a few months out of the year, we can do all of the things that never seem to fit into the space of our "normal" lives. People read books, spend lazy days at the pool, go on craft kicks (if you're my mother). For me, the last three summers have been spent in a place that can only be compared to Neverland or Narnia or some other fictional place that you've only read or dreamed about: a wonderful little summer camp down a winding Mississippi backroad. For about ten weeks, I am blessed to live where kids and sunshine are staples to life. Where the pool is your shower. Where wasp stings are somewhat unavoidable and where air conditioning is unheard of. This little camp holds my heart, and I cannot tell you of another place that I have found such Christian community or have learned so much about relationships or God or pole beans...

And after that tenth week, it's over. And you're back home around t.v. and air conditioning and fast food and strip malls. And it's almost as if those ten weeks were a dream. This summer it hit harder than ever, coming back from camp, because it was probably the most difficult I've ever experienced.. and yet it was also the one that God brought me the farthest on in so many ways. He taught me what it's like to be in real relationships with people, about love and hope and faith and peace. He showed me how extensive His Creation is - from the highest mountains to the lowest caves. He taught me to question things that are, that just because it is doesn't mean it should be.

These past few days I've been asking myself a lot of questions. Usually when the summer ends, we step back into the "real" world and don the clothing of our "normal" life again. Sure, some habits like recycling may stick, but for the most part things go back to the way they were. But WHY IS THAT? When was it determined that this is real life and that is not, this is how things are done and that is just an idea to entertain? Well, I'm tired of making that distinction. My reality is not what it has been, no, no longer.

The things that define my reality are:
 6 hour bus rides with smelly junior high boys.
the taste of fresh tomatoes and peppers from a garden in your own backyard.
bare feet on smooth wood.
geese landing on a lake in the morning.
fresh meat from local farmers.
bracelets made with love.
love that comes from God.
community.
bright, joyful colors.
poems by Wendell Berry.
flowing skirts.
dog breath.
dirt.
mud puddles.
camp fires and honey and granola.
hand-written letters.
rain on a tin roof.
frisbee.
tent poles.
my family.


In a few days I'll be moving back for my last year of college as an undergraduate...
I'm eagerly awaiting the chance to be back amongst the things that are familiar, yet determined that they do not remain the same. So much has changed this summer.

In The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis, there's a place called "The Wood Between The Worlds." The main characters of the story happen across this place while on some of their adventures. It's a place where the only things that happen are the trees continue to grow - nothing else lives there, only the soft blades of grass and the shade trees, but from that place one can access all of the other "worlds". As one character described it, the wood was not where the real living took place. For me, the real living takes place at camp, and the in-between place has been the other nine months of the year. However, this is not the way it should be. It's time to let what we do at camp fill the streets. Lord, I'm praying for boldness and courage and help, so much help, to not slip back into sameness, to make my reality real again. 

"Suppose we did our work
like the snow, quietly, quietly,
leaving nothing out."
-w.b.

may we all be sincerely, thankfully progressing,
"further UP and further IN."