Finding God in Child Like Wonder

Standing the top of North Mountain, I gazed out across the rolling and lush green hills of the Shenandoah Valley. In the distance, like unmovable bulwarks were the Blue Ridge Mountains, while far bellow us on the valley floor the sunlight glimmered and bounced off the tin roof tops of Shrine Mont and the community of Orkney Springs, Virginia. With incense burning on our make-shift rock altar, we lifted our voices up to the highest heaven in song to the energizing rhythm of an acoustic guitar. As I prepared to celebrate the Holy Eucharist in this natural cathedral, God’s Living presence was overwhelming and very real. Along with eighteen middle school campers and several councilors we praised God as one voice, and one people. In that holy moment as deep shadows lightly danced across the valley floor then leapt over the mountains beyond, all I could think was that God is surely in this place; the Incarnate Christ is an integral part of all creation. How could he not be?

For ten days during the month of July, I had the wonderful experience of serving as chaplain to Explorer’s III Middle School Youth Camp at Shrine Mont. I went to camp not knowing what to expect, hoping I would be able to provide some sort of spiritual guidance to these eighteen youth and their councilors. Today as I reflect on my time spent with these wonderful young people, I hope I was able to give them half as much spiritual nurturing and substance as they gave me. I arrived at Shrine Mont tentative and a little uneasy, I left full of the Spirit with an incredible reminder of just how many gifts our children have to offer our community of faith. Like all generations of people in the parish, our children and youth provide a unique and delightful perspective of God’s church and the world. Like a bright ray of sunlight bursting forth through dark and heavy clouds, my ten days of ministering to these young people reinvigorated the absolute importance of never losing the need or ability to play, to act a little crazy and have fun in this life. While life’s burden’s will always be around, attempting to weigh us down, I was reminded by these children that life is simply too short and too important to allow stress and worry to overwhelm us. When we become like children we touch that often hidden or even forgotten place in our hearts that is still full of innocence, vulnerable and hungry for what is new.

While I realize that it is unrealistic for most of us to go off to summer camp, it is very feasible to seek out the child like wonder and love that still exists in every one of our hearts. Through an old but long forgotten lens we may just find a renewed hope and child like freedom in an often troublesome world. We may also encounter the Incarnate Christ, who says, “Bring the children to me. Anyone who wishes to enter the Kingdom of Heaven must first become like one of these.”