{cline} field days

 

There’s a tall field of grass at camp, just behind Cline field and on the way to the outdoor camp. At night and early in the morning it is ominously covered in fog. Some of my best and fondest memories have happened in that field.

A few years ago I supervised a group of 14 and 15 year olds. Every morning while the rest of the camp had breakfast, we had devotions. And every single morning we prayed for the staff and campers at Tahoma that week. I insisted that if they had to go to the bathroom outside, they deserved extra prayers.

As the summer came to a close, we had a special dinner. Pizza and Oreos. I’d overdone it on the oreos, thinking the 11 of them would consume two packages of Oreos. They didn’t, and we spontaneously decided to trek through the field to Tahoma and deliver Oreos.

We leisurely walked through the field, running ahead and hiding in the midst of the tall grass in attempts to scare each other when we jumped out. It never worked. We excitedly presented the Oreos with a song. You Are My Sunshine. After waving goodbye and accepting gracious thank you’s, we headed back.

 

It was a good day.

Last summer Emily and I took a walk around the lake without our shoes on, one of my favorite break-time activities. The Wanderwag Trail takes you from the long driveway into camp, past the Old Campfire Pit, slowly over gravelly bits and gratefully over smooth patches of cold hard mud. It makes its way to Tahoma, where you find yourself in the back corner of the field of tall grass.

The first time I made the barefoot trek was the Fourth of July, 2009. We’d been at a barbeque hosted by the Jordan’s next door to camp. As I sat, listening to conversation, I felt an urge to leave. I needed to be alone. Madeleine L’Engle writes about needing BE-ing time. Time to just exist. Which was why I left. I needed to simply be.

I walked the loop twice, the entire time wondering what the Garden was like. So many things I know I imagine incorrectly. Like the place of Jesus in Heaven. The Apostle’s Creed says “he ascended into Heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.” And though I’ve known those words since I was young, it only recently occurred to me that when I close my eyes and imagine stepping before the Throne, I imagine Jesus at the left hand of God. My right.

I’ve always imagined the Garden to look like an orchard, with low hanging, fruit producing trees. Nicely manicured grass. Maybe a tiny stream. Some shrubs for the two to hide behind.

On July 4^th, I traded that image in. Instead, I pictured the Garden more like what I was experiencing; dense forest, tall grass, winding trails, and much to explore and discover. That was when I decided to only ever walk the trail without my shoes on, to try and get a tiny step closer to Eden.

Emily and I stopped at Tahoma and sat in the open tent cabins, trying to imagine what it would be like to be a camper or a counselor at this mysterious, cool camp.

But I said my fondest memories happened in the field, not at Tahoma.

At some point in our walk back, we decided to take pictures of ourselves in the field. We spent at least a half an hour strategically placing the camera flat on the ground and standing above it, or carefully balancing it on top of our flip flops and running towards it. We sat and made faces at each other and made model poses.

Then we went to Target and I made a collage print of the pictures. The caption simply read “good day.”



It was a good day.

One night last week I found myself heading towards the field of tall grass with Jacob and Phil. It was nighttime and there were no lights. We didn’t have a flashlight, and we were headed through the field out to Tahoma. After a few moments of quiet, I admitted that it had turned into an out-braving competition and that I was really scared.

We made it to Tahoma and the boys quickly walked back. I walked less quickly, complaining that they walked too fast. Even though it was only last week, I can’t remember what we talked about, but I remember that I wished we could do that every night for the rest of my life.

It was a good night.
A few months ago I found myself walking the trail through the tall grass. I stopped, looked at the wall of grass next to the trail and impulsively decided to walk in it. A short walk in and I sat down, creating a burrow. I sat there for hours, reading Psalms and writing and enjoying the solitude.

Since then, I’ve retreated to my burrow many times. The path from the trail to the burrow grows more obvious each time I walk it, threatening to betray my secret hiding place.

Today A few days ago, I packed my backpack with my Bible, a notebook, a book my friend Shari gave me to read, three golden delicious apples, my cell phone and a granola bar. I was determined to stay there as long as I could possibly handle. So I stayed until I had to go.

While on the phone with Gregory, a bumblebee invaded my territory and I willingly stood watching until he flew past me. I tried giving ants a piece of my apple. I curled up in the fetal position and cried, wishing that I would hear the sound of rustling on the path to the burrow and look up to see Jesus, come to lay and stare at the sky with me. I listened to the wind in the grass, wondering what songs of praise were going on around me.

I read some of the book, and left the burrow on the phone with Jami. She is currently teaching English in Chile and thanks to the magic of Skype, she was a part of my field day.

My burrow won’t last much longer. Soon I will have to leave camp and the weather will do its business and the grass will suffer and then it will victoriously burst forth again, and I will have found a new tradition of burrowing every summer. A new burrow each summer.

But I will never forget the magic of this first summer of my burrow, emerging from hours in the field with little pieces of grass all in my hair and on my arms and even surprisingly in my shorts.



It was a good day.