Sunday Homily

On Saturday we had people from the community come to help clean up around the camp to get things ready for groups that are coming in June.   It was a beautiful day, great weather for all the work we had to do.  It's very hot for May, 85+ degrees.  It’s hard to believe that a week ago when we arrived there was still ice on the lake.

As the work was winding down and the temperature was rising, the children in the group began to ask about getting in the lake.  Their parents told them it would be so very cold, but they allowed them to go in if they wanted.  Phil said the water temperature had to be in the mid-forties.  The dipping in the lake consisted of jumping off the dock up to about the top of the legs and then running out of the water.  After a while many of them were able to wade for a short time in the shallowest water.

You may ask:  How do they do such a thing?  WHY do they do such a thing?

Canadian children have endured a long hard winter.  Deep snow and temperatures of 40 below not including the wind chill.  There is a chance of significant snow seven to eight months of the year.  All that gives them a different perspective on an 80-degree day.  These days are not to be wasted; there are not nearly enough of them. Each one has to be taken advantage of and savored.  And so they wade in.  They squeal from the feel of the burning cold on their skin and the delight of it in their heart.

There’s a lesson in this for us too.  There are activities and opportunities that come our way.  They can’t be wasted; there are not nearly enough of them.  These days that God gives us to do the “good works that He has prepared in advance for us to do” can’t be taken for granted.  We must wade in.

For us the season to savor is our summer at Camp of the Woods.   The opportunity to be here and serve is for here and now.  There will come a time when we won’t be able to come.  So we wade in.  We feel some weight from the responsibilities we have assumed in our role here.  But the overall feeling is one of delight.  Delight with the friends with whom we are able to serve; the fellowship is sweet.  Delight, also, in the connection we will soon make again with campers.  I am beginning to see the names of those returning on their registration forms, and I can’t wait to see their faces again.

 

Another reason to savor this season is that it is a time of peace in our lives.  Currently we are not living in the midst of trouble or turmoil.  Life is good.  It makes me think of the “prayer of the week” from the book of prayers I read through.  This week part of the prayer said, “…Keep me from all things that may hurt me, that I, being ready both in mind and body, may accomplish with a free heart those things which belong to your purpose…”  Being free from pain gives me a free heart, one that can fully pursue God’s purpose.  I am thankful for this season to enjoy.

Jesus talked about this too.  John’s disciples came to Jesus and asked him why Jesus and his followers did not fast as they did.  Jesus told them,  “You don’t fast while you have the bridegroom with you.  There is time for that when the bridegroom goes away.”  He makes it clear that savoring and delighting in good days and good times is not just allowed, but expected.

Perhaps Moses summed it up best in Psalm 90:  “Teach us to number our days.”  In other words, “Teach us that our days are numbered.”  Let's make the most of every minute!

Wade in!