Camp Log: January, 2005     Peaceful

A new year dawns.  In some respects, I wish I knew where it was taking us. It seems like the future is uncertain in so many directions.  This is the time of year when the camp business is slow, but the heating bills are highest.  It is easy to get focused on how much money we don’t have compared with what we need. But then you hear the news from Southeast Asia and you consider the horror that 2005 is ushering for hundreds of thousands of people.

It seems to me that many of the familiar signposts are changing.  The campground I grew up on was in North East, Maryland.  It is a great place.  Many families on the Philadelphia District have family cabins there.  But they are considering selling that place.  There’s no room to grow. Times are changing.  Things are different.

My dear friend and camp super-supporter, Chuck Zink, is very sick tonight.  Commingled in my body is the prayer of faith and my fear for my friend as he bravely struggles against the cancer that has invaded his body.  There is so much that I do not understand.

And yet as I read the beginning of Job 4 this morning, I was reminded to focus on the peace of Christ that I have so often talked about with others.  That peace is available to me, not just because I choose to trust in Christ and cease my worrying . . . it is available because Christ really is present, right here and now.  And Christ is present to Chuck and to the folks in Philadelphia and to the folks in Southeast Asia.  Whether I am completely traumatized or mildly agitated, Christ is present.  You would think that after singing the chorus, “. . . Emmanuel. God with us, revealed in us, His name is called Emmanuel” all through Advent, that I would have figured out that Christ is present by now.

But I forget so quickly.  And I am so easily shaken.  My life seems so very fragile. Fortunately, Christ is not.  

Fear not!  Grace to you, and peace.