But I liked this pile of rocks
The call came last Wednesday morning. I was at my desk at work, minding my own business, when the phone rang.
It was my friend Doug. A pastor, he was with the teenagers of his church at camp. Cedar River Baptist Camp, in Letts, Iowa, to be exact.
"You ready for a shocker?" It wasn't a giddy tone of voice, the kind you'd use when you saw someone eat a grasshopper for the first time or something. This tone of voice was more serious.
"They're shutting down the camp. This is the last Senior (teen age) camp, they're doing Take the Challenge next week, and that's it."
A full five seconds passes before I respond. An icky feeling takes up residence in the pit of my stomach.
We talked for a few more minutes, then Doug had to go. As soon as I hung up, I picked the phone back up and called Kristy.
"We're going to camp tomorrow."
- - - -
Doug asked me once how long I'd been going to Cedar River Baptist Camp, and I couldn't even remember. After a little mental exercise, I settled on 16 years. Every summer.
I was a camper for several years. Camper of the Week once.
I worked on the summer staff for two summers, sandwiching my senior year of high school.
As Mr. Mike, I've taken the teens of my youth group there for several years. Seven or eight, at least.
And the years that I wasn't doing any of those things, I just showed up. This year was one of those years, for the first time in a while.
The camp has become, for me, a sacred place. To use the biblical parlance of Jacob at Bethel, this place has been my pile of rocks. Especially particular spots, places where I experienced God's presence in really intense ways, places where I saw God do things and change lives, places where I saw the direction of my life being tweaked by God. I have always loved to be there. The place challenges me, is a place where I almost instinctively take stock of where I am in my relationship with God.
Bro. Dave Smith, the director of the camp, is a personal friend of my family and of mine. I consider him a mentor, someone from whom I have learned a great deal. I love to be around him. Same with Mrs. Smith, and their adult children and spouses.
Not to mention that God has done some great things in the lives of my children in the faith during weeks of camp. Some have accepted Christ; many have grown and become more like Christ during their time there.
So when I heard that last Thursday was going to be the last Thursday evening service (always the highlight of a week camp at Cedar River), I knew I had to go.
- - - -
I made the trip in a borrowed convertible, which did nothing to dampen the coolness of making a three-hour trip on a beautiful day in a convertible. Pulling in and hearing teenagers say, "Hey, cool car!" took me back to...never. As it turns out, this was my first time to ride in a car cool enough to elicit audible comments.
Kristy rode with me. She wasn't sure she wanted to go, being pregnant and all, but when she heard I'd borrowed a convertible, she wanted to go.
Twenty minutes from camp, I stopped and picked up my friend to go with us. He has a lot of personal connection to the place, as well. And he'd taken a lot of flack for the directions in which God was taking his life and walk, some of it from people who were at camp, so I wanted him to come and be there with me. He doesn't need my vote of support or anything, but I thought I'd offer the chance, and he took me up on it, and I'm really glad he did. As it turns out, he'd never ridden in a convertible either, so the bonuses were flying on several levels.
So we pull into camp, and Kristy goes to find Doug's wife, and I'm hanging out with Doug and my friend. Pretty quickly, I establish that I need to go to the amphitheater. Doug wanted to come along, which I wasn't keen on initally, but I said okay, and it was cool.
The amphitheater is a place at the back of the camp property, a natural amphitheater-shaped piece of clearing in the middle of the forest next to the Cedar River. Back in the day, a long path was cleared, and several times a week, young men would traipse down the winding path to the clearing. There were benches there, and a pulpit. These were times that Bro. Dave would share with us his heart: to see us become men of God. Bro. Dave would have us yell across the river, seeing if we were loud enough to cause an echo.
Cedar River! Cedar River!
I will be a man of God!
We were always just loud enough.
So Doug and I are coming to the entrance of the path, and the first thing we notice is that there isn't really a path anymore. No one's gone this way in quite a while. So we pick our way through, along where I roughly remembered the path being, and we finally made it to the clearing.
And this is what we found.
It's grown up in weeds. Rain and various other forces of nature have washed away much of the ground that was there. The benches and pulpit are gone.
This pile of rocks, this most special of places...well, it wasn't the way I remembered it. At all.
And now I knew that I was going to be here for the last time. Because this would be the last time that a teen camp was conducted on this property, as Cedar River Baptist Camp.
All I could think was, "What the...?"
- - - -
I come from a spiritual lineage that, on the whole, prides itself on never changing. It kind of looks down its nose at change. It splits off, separates itself, distances itself from change. It places a positive moral value on things that are old-fashioned. It champions things that haven't changed. Songs, preaching styles, ministry methods, ministries themselves, you name it.
If the Lord never changes, as the fashions of men,
If He's always the same, why, He's old fashioned, then!
And for the whole time that I'd been coming to Cedar River, it had been championed by others - and itself - as a place that would never change. But here I was, looking at an overgrown clump of weeds that had been a sacred place, at a camp that was preparing to close its doors and reincarnate three states away.
And then it hit me:
It's all up for grabs.
See, God never changes. (As a side note, that makes Him timeless, not old-fashioned.) His Word, as an extension of Himself, never changes, either. But everything else does.
People? Check.
Places? Check.
Culture? Check.
Relationships? Double check.
Etc.? Check.
As I looked at that plot of ground, it hit me that it wasn't the same place it was, say fifteen years ago. But why would I expect it to be? I'm not the person I was before I started writing this, let alone fifteen years ago.
I was overtaken by this really intense idea:
I must hold on to God, and I must hold everything else pretty loosely.
God wants me to continue to be conformed to the image of His Son. That means I can't not change. And it would be wrong - it is wrong - for me to be so selfish that I would not want for a place, or another person, to continue on the journey that God has given to them.
Security comes, not from being able to return to sentimentally warm and fuzzy locales, but in the constant presence of The One Who Never Changes.
So right there, on the spot, I sang to Him.
I love you, Lord,
And I lift my voice
To worship You. Oh my soul, rejoice.
Take joy, my King,
In what You hear:
Let it be a sweet, sweet sound in Your ears.
And for one last time, the ground was holy.
I turned to face the river, and yelled across to catch the echo one last time. Part of me hopes I was the very last one.
Cedar River!
My heart full, I walked away, and never looked back.
It was my friend Doug. A pastor, he was with the teenagers of his church at camp. Cedar River Baptist Camp, in Letts, Iowa, to be exact.
"You ready for a shocker?" It wasn't a giddy tone of voice, the kind you'd use when you saw someone eat a grasshopper for the first time or something. This tone of voice was more serious.
"They're shutting down the camp. This is the last Senior (teen age) camp, they're doing Take the Challenge next week, and that's it."
A full five seconds passes before I respond. An icky feeling takes up residence in the pit of my stomach.
We talked for a few more minutes, then Doug had to go. As soon as I hung up, I picked the phone back up and called Kristy.
"We're going to camp tomorrow."
- - - -
Doug asked me once how long I'd been going to Cedar River Baptist Camp, and I couldn't even remember. After a little mental exercise, I settled on 16 years. Every summer.
I was a camper for several years. Camper of the Week once.
I worked on the summer staff for two summers, sandwiching my senior year of high school.
As Mr. Mike, I've taken the teens of my youth group there for several years. Seven or eight, at least.
And the years that I wasn't doing any of those things, I just showed up. This year was one of those years, for the first time in a while.
The camp has become, for me, a sacred place. To use the biblical parlance of Jacob at Bethel, this place has been my pile of rocks. Especially particular spots, places where I experienced God's presence in really intense ways, places where I saw God do things and change lives, places where I saw the direction of my life being tweaked by God. I have always loved to be there. The place challenges me, is a place where I almost instinctively take stock of where I am in my relationship with God.
Bro. Dave Smith, the director of the camp, is a personal friend of my family and of mine. I consider him a mentor, someone from whom I have learned a great deal. I love to be around him. Same with Mrs. Smith, and their adult children and spouses.
Not to mention that God has done some great things in the lives of my children in the faith during weeks of camp. Some have accepted Christ; many have grown and become more like Christ during their time there.
So when I heard that last Thursday was going to be the last Thursday evening service (always the highlight of a week camp at Cedar River), I knew I had to go.
- - - -
I made the trip in a borrowed convertible, which did nothing to dampen the coolness of making a three-hour trip on a beautiful day in a convertible. Pulling in and hearing teenagers say, "Hey, cool car!" took me back to...never. As it turns out, this was my first time to ride in a car cool enough to elicit audible comments.
Kristy rode with me. She wasn't sure she wanted to go, being pregnant and all, but when she heard I'd borrowed a convertible, she wanted to go.
Twenty minutes from camp, I stopped and picked up my friend to go with us. He has a lot of personal connection to the place, as well. And he'd taken a lot of flack for the directions in which God was taking his life and walk, some of it from people who were at camp, so I wanted him to come and be there with me. He doesn't need my vote of support or anything, but I thought I'd offer the chance, and he took me up on it, and I'm really glad he did. As it turns out, he'd never ridden in a convertible either, so the bonuses were flying on several levels.
So we pull into camp, and Kristy goes to find Doug's wife, and I'm hanging out with Doug and my friend. Pretty quickly, I establish that I need to go to the amphitheater. Doug wanted to come along, which I wasn't keen on initally, but I said okay, and it was cool.
The amphitheater is a place at the back of the camp property, a natural amphitheater-shaped piece of clearing in the middle of the forest next to the Cedar River. Back in the day, a long path was cleared, and several times a week, young men would traipse down the winding path to the clearing. There were benches there, and a pulpit. These were times that Bro. Dave would share with us his heart: to see us become men of God. Bro. Dave would have us yell across the river, seeing if we were loud enough to cause an echo.
Cedar River! Cedar River!
I will be a man of God!
We were always just loud enough.
So Doug and I are coming to the entrance of the path, and the first thing we notice is that there isn't really a path anymore. No one's gone this way in quite a while. So we pick our way through, along where I roughly remembered the path being, and we finally made it to the clearing.
And this is what we found.
It's grown up in weeds. Rain and various other forces of nature have washed away much of the ground that was there. The benches and pulpit are gone.
This pile of rocks, this most special of places...well, it wasn't the way I remembered it. At all.
And now I knew that I was going to be here for the last time. Because this would be the last time that a teen camp was conducted on this property, as Cedar River Baptist Camp.
All I could think was, "What the...?"
- - - -
I come from a spiritual lineage that, on the whole, prides itself on never changing. It kind of looks down its nose at change. It splits off, separates itself, distances itself from change. It places a positive moral value on things that are old-fashioned. It champions things that haven't changed. Songs, preaching styles, ministry methods, ministries themselves, you name it.
If the Lord never changes, as the fashions of men,
If He's always the same, why, He's old fashioned, then!
And for the whole time that I'd been coming to Cedar River, it had been championed by others - and itself - as a place that would never change. But here I was, looking at an overgrown clump of weeds that had been a sacred place, at a camp that was preparing to close its doors and reincarnate three states away.
And then it hit me:
It's all up for grabs.
See, God never changes. (As a side note, that makes Him timeless, not old-fashioned.) His Word, as an extension of Himself, never changes, either. But everything else does.
People? Check.
Places? Check.
Culture? Check.
Relationships? Double check.
Etc.? Check.
As I looked at that plot of ground, it hit me that it wasn't the same place it was, say fifteen years ago. But why would I expect it to be? I'm not the person I was before I started writing this, let alone fifteen years ago.
I was overtaken by this really intense idea:
I must hold on to God, and I must hold everything else pretty loosely.
God wants me to continue to be conformed to the image of His Son. That means I can't not change. And it would be wrong - it is wrong - for me to be so selfish that I would not want for a place, or another person, to continue on the journey that God has given to them.
Security comes, not from being able to return to sentimentally warm and fuzzy locales, but in the constant presence of The One Who Never Changes.
So right there, on the spot, I sang to Him.
I love you, Lord,
And I lift my voice
To worship You. Oh my soul, rejoice.
Take joy, my King,
In what You hear:
Let it be a sweet, sweet sound in Your ears.
And for one last time, the ground was holy.
I turned to face the river, and yelled across to catch the echo one last time. Part of me hopes I was the very last one.
Cedar River!
My heart full, I walked away, and never looked back.
posted by pastor mike at 8:14 AM
9 Comments:
Mike:
Throughout most of this post, I thought--this is beautiful. Good post. Wow. Wonderful God we serve.
But there was that part about the convertible that made me think of the scene in Monsters, Inc. where the commercial comes on and the Billy Crystal character gets covered up by the logo and then thinks it so cool that he was ON TV!
My car made your blog! WOW!
And yet, I ended with the sense of awe at our changeless God and almost forgot that you got there while riding in my convertible.
:)
Thanks.
Just going to add another perspective on this, as one who has often meditated on the transience of life.
Last Thanksgiving, I stood on Dobbins Landing overlooking Lake Erie, staring out into the darkness and the fog. Supposedly I had come home to visit, but as I looked around, I saw nothing of the Erie that I had loved. Places I had known, people I had loved, all had passed on. Friends had become strangers, separated from me by distance and time. And so I brooded on the dock.
And yet....
I believe that, in heaven at the end of all things, there will be every good thing that ever was, but better than it could ever be here. Somewhere in the Summer Lands will be the Erie that I loved, but better than it ever was. When you arrive on the other side of Jordan, Mike, I believe that you will find Cedar River Baptist Camp, but better than it ever was down here. And, in that place at the end of time, it will never go away.
And so I give you a quote:
[E]verything changes. And nothing is truly lost.
--Sandman
Brother Dave took us guys out there, and told us that he had prtayed and fasted there before he bought the property.
He made us yell, too.
The most distinct thing was my frustration in giant steel cables running into the ground. Ruins the effect... the nature.
But at the same time, I was still coming back from the 5 consecutive heart failures on the climbing wall.
Anywho... there are places like this for everyone. You had a hard time seeing how yours turned out 15 years later. I had a hard time when the teen room was completely painted over and I was kicked out. Even if I didn't have any part of it.. that's where I learned and loved to be.
I love the big pavilion thingie. I almost never get to hang out there, but I have loads of good memories. From the hayrack ride, to the eggtoss, to moving tables with Brother Lambert.
I guess there's a big difference... I haven't been around these places long enough to hold them as sacred. But I love them. And I'm losing some of mine, too.
A long time ago, I lived in an apartment complex. I was... I dunno, 5 or 6 years old. Teddy Ruxbin was out about then. It was pretty popular. I had this weird obsession with the Bounders. They were these little red guys without hands and a big whote spiked horn jutting out of their head (which had two legs and a tail protruding from it... no body to speak of) and a mane of black hair around the horn. They were mouths with legs. That was it. Anyway, I whined and whined until my gramma got me a Bounder toy and I... I got home and pulled the back of that cardboard off the blister box. You know how with blister boxes the cardboard doesn't always come off but it just kind of... peels and you're left without the glossy picture of the cardboard but just... ugly, rough-feeling brown cardboard? I had that. So, I grabbed some crayons and drew a picture of a bounder there and wrote my name all over it. Truth, at 5 years old- when you can suscessfully spell "Cohenour", you've made a great accomplishment and you're proud, and you write it again and again out of fear that if you do not... you'll forget and have to learn it all over again and curse your ancestors for not being "Smith"s.
Anyway, the point to all this... I finished and then my gramma made me hold my part of the deal up. I got a toy, so I had to clean my room. My masterpiece of art found itself in the garbage and was lost to me.
Years later, and multiple moves later, I was staying with my grandparents down on south 3rd street- because farm houses in the middle of nowherei n Tremont stink when you're like, 10. Brandon and I went to go play basketball with Josh Russell up at Jefferson. We were walking back down the alleyway when something caught my eye on the ground. A cardboard backer from a Teddy Ruxbin toy with a crudely drawn Bounder and my name scribbled numerous times in crayon. I knew instantly what it was. I could remember when I made it. I'm even able to retell such a boring, pointless story to you fourteen years later.
I don't have a clue where that apartment is though. I couldn't begin to tell you the lay of the house I lived in for so long. I don't remember the place... but the things I did there... the decisions I made and the growing up I did... that's all still with me.
Sorry for the pointlessness. I'll now return to trolling.
While we're sharing memories...
Back at the Pekin energy place (whatever it's called now), there are various concrete tubs of fecal matter.
My family always refers to it as the 'toot factory.' We're so white trash it's not funny.
Anyway, it's right next to the river, and since my family is 40% river people, we love it down there. My Grampa Walt actually lived in a shack by the railroad tracks down there.
We always drove down through it, then by the river, under the bridge, then making a U turn, going back under the bridge and up Main Street.
With construction on the river and their building plans, they've torn the intersection of the toot factory and the river up, and put a gazebo there. We can no longer drive through, the way we always had. No more looking to see "Gramma's eternal flame" burning... No more rolling all the windows up and cracking jopkes about who smelt it delt it. No more drive by feddings of the pigeons.
I miss my toot factory.
Dude you changed your picture. It's at the bottom now too.
Mike,
What a great post!
I, too, have really fond memories of going to a Baptist church camp years ago, first as a camper and then for several years as a counselor. God used those weeks to build on the foundation that had been made for my by my parents and my grandmothers. There is nothing like being in a retreat setting to weed things out of our lives that hinder our communcation with the Lord! I could go back and visit but I think I prefer to remember things as they were. God is good to give us such memories, no?
Cedar River Baptist Camp is the best summer camp to go to...as a kid going there myself I enjoyed it so much. I went to the music camp that year, and little did I know that it would be my last year there...until the summer of 2009 when CRBC re-opened!!!!! We now have a camp website you can visit, and get updates about summer camps.
www.cedarriverbc.com
Paulis, thanks for the update! I look forward to hearing great things.
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