All Creatures Got a Place in the Choir

When I was growing up in Boise, Idaho, some of my fondest memories involve camping in the outdoors. I first did this in Boy Scouts through Troop 19. I got involved with that troop because several friends from my church, Whitney United Methodist Church, were involved, and their fathers were also involved. There was a nice synergy between Boy Scouts and church as a result. It was a logical thing then to make the transition to attending church camp when I entered High School. 

It is impossible to overstate the deeply significant difference our church camp experiences can make in the lives of individuals from age 3 to 103. An article in Portland Family magazine collects some of the memories various persons have of their camping experiences. The article features many stories from our United Methodist camps in Oregon and Idaho. This is the article: Unforgettable Campfire and Camping Memories. 


Susan Delaney provided this interesting link about a study relating personal well-being and caring behavior with experiences in the natural world:

The University of Rochester reported recently that seeing naturescapes helps reduces stress and promotes overall well being. While the positive effects of nature are well documented, this study (read about it here) shows that the benefits extend to a person's values and actions. Exposure to nature, in any form, leads people to value community and close relationships. In short, communing with nature helps people also commune with their basic values. If rubbing elbows with nature helps us to be people friendly and generous, perhaps we should invite more nature into our lives.  Good idea!!

Anyone involved with the camping programs of our conference will surely say, "Of course! We've known that for a century." It's nice that academic research has caught up with us, or has at least verified what we have been practicing all along. Church camp is not just about sticking people out in the woods. It is about providing experiences in appropriate natural settings that reinforce our connection as creatures of God with the rest of the created world. As Christians, we proclaim that we are created by God. We are therefore creatures, along with the rest of the natural world. Camping makes the connections between human community and the natural community explicit. When we sing hymns like "This Is My Father's World," and "For the Beauty of the Earth," we are acknowledging along with the Psalmist that "the Earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof" (Psalm 24:1). Church camp, precisely because it makes these connections explicit, helps us to remember what we too often forget: we are a part of a vast intimately interconnected web of life. We are created by God with a purpose, and all our individual purposes are interwoven into the vast fabric of purposes God has for all of creation. 

Well-being, and charitable kindness of the kind researched in the article cited above arise out of remembering who we are and why we are here. We are here to give glory to God by our very aliveness and our relationship with the rest of this earthly chorus that God has assembled to sing into being. All God's children - human and more-than-human - have a place in the choir. Church camp reminds us how to sing.


(All images are from the GoCamping website: http://gocamping.org)