Back to the Future

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    Earlier this month, I did a bit of time traveling. It happens to me everytime I return to Camp Capers to some degree. I worked there one summer during college, so I cannot help but drift back in my memories when I return to that familiar place. Besides that usual experience of drifting back in my mind to those earlier times, on this trip to camp, had a theme from that movie that was so popular 35 years ago: Back to the Future.

    The retreat weekend called Mid-Winter is a mini-camp session, and I was invited to be part of the leadership team for teenage campers from across south Texas. We did usual camp things like sing songs, eat and play together, and spend time in prayer and cabin devotions. The teaching teaching was where we really got to dig into the theme. We pondered the question: What would we, the teachers and leaders of the camp, tell our Jr. High Selves if we could travel back in time? 

    As we worked on the theme, we brought in the Bible, of course, as a sort of time-travel device in its own right. The Bible is a library; a collection of wisdom from our ancestors who had the same human experience we are having. They struggled to discern how God was at work in the life of their community, just like we do. Those authors of the books of the Bible have given us the great gift of telling generation after generation the things they probably wish they had known. Bible Study is a sort-of time travel experience. We get to hear from people from the past and glean knowledge that would otherwise have been lost. It is my experience that Bible study is best done with a loving community. 

    Like some of the teenagers we were with at camp, sometimes we are not ready to listen or hear. Sometimes we "just don't get" what those ancient voices are saying. Sometimes we just don't feel like listening. We all carry that adolescent attitude of thinking we know everything, so it is good to be around teens to be reminded of just how little we knew then, and even how much less we know as adults. 

    God is at work in every generation, and in our lives now. That is what I learn again and again by going back to reading scripture, and by going back to camp. God surprises us by opening our hearts and minds, by sending us the people we need in time of need, and by refusing to turn away even we when turn from God time after time. That's part of the learning and experience of life. God does not turn away. One thing I wish I could tell my younger self: keep going, God will not turn away. I have heard that and continue to hear that message from our Biblical ancestors. Endurance is the remarkable trait people of faith exhibit. Through wilderness and trial, and even adolescence: we endure, we keep going. Along the way we get to witness the goodness God has in store for us. 

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