another trip to Skycroft

I am sitting here in Common Grounds about an hour before I have to leave for my flight back to Maryland. I am filled with mixed emotions. It will be good to see family and friends for the brief time that I will get to do that. I am a bit nervous about what will go down up at Skycroft during assessment. And yet I am excited as well.

Skycroft is a very comfortable place for me anyway. I went to camp there as a camper for 6 years while growing up. I have also been there as a staffer of Crosspoint camp for two years. And last summer I just went up there to visit. In fact there has only been three summers since I was twelve that I haven't spent at least a couple days up there. When I was 19 I didn't go to camp or work camp. When I was 21 and 23 my Crosspoint teams didn't make it to Skycroft those summers. But every other summer since 7th grade I found myself there in one role or another.

This time I will yet again be at Skycroft in a completely different role. One could map out my spiritual journey and calling based on my times and roles at Skycroft Retreat Center. That place is obviously thick with amazing memories for me. It is a mixture of my Mt. Sinai and Mt. Zion. In any case, God always shows up when I go up there. It is my Jerusalem, my place of theophany.

Its amazing how God can use specific places and times to bring us near to him. Its also fun when he takes us back to those same places for times of remembrance. If I was a patriarch I would have set up many altars there by now. It just reminds me that God is more than transcendent, he is intimate. He is the God of history. He is the God of real time and real place. He is an infinite God who makes himself tangible. And there are fleeting moments up on that mountain when I can almost smell him. I can almost feel his touch. His presence is concrete. His being is evident.

Father, I return to our favorite spot together. I smile with the thought that your memories of our times together at Skycroft are thicker than my own. Once again I return a slightly different person, with a very different purpose. But just the same, I return to seek you and to find you. Father, would you be with me in these next few days at Skycroft in such a way that it is evident to others. I pray that your face would shine upon me and that your favor would accompany me on this trip home.