Food for the Wilderness
Daily Devotion
May 7, 2020
Daniel Grainger, Pastoral Intern
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Though it’s been many years since I served as a camp counselor, the excited anticipation for the beginning of summer camp still begins to course through my veins each May.
I vividly remember the crisp, cool May air dancing with the ever-warming Spring sunshine and the joyful composite of gravel road and cedar trees that welcomed me when I drove into that sacred place apart. But more than the woods and nature – the people, the relationships, the community are what make this memory of a time of anticipation complete and whole.
Today I give thanks for, remember, and pray for our summer camp ministries, knowing that the normal rhythms of the summer camp season have been altered, if not cancelled this year. May these ministries continue to serve as a reminder of our capacity for courage and flexibility in the ways we are called to be a community of faith, now more than ever.
This tune is the melody (lyrics below) to “Dance with Me,” one of my favorite camp songs from my time at Camp Ewalu in Strawberry Point, Iowa:
This is holy time, we’re gathered together to worship you, to love one another, and as we pray, and as we sing, and as we dance, and as we dream, oh Lord I beg of you, just this one thing: Won’t you dance with me throughout the heavens and below the seas, and up on the mountain tops, roll with the breeze, come carry me, Lord won’t you dance with me.