Walking in Wonder

I just got back home to North Carolina after being the camp pastor for pre-junior week at Camp Friedenswald, a Mennonite camp in Michigan supported by our church conference. I still have new songs stuck in my head (with their corresponding actions!) and am both tired and inspired from the energy of the 3rd and 4th graders I was with.

The theme for the week was “Walking in Wonder” – focusing on Jesus’ invitation for us to move through the world with openness, curiosity, and courage. Wonder is a radical act in our age of anxiety. It gave me hope to spend a week in intergenerational community – without anyone looking at their everpresent phones or typing away frenetically at their laptop.

Jesus – in his sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6 – tells the crowds to not worry about their lives or what they’ll eat or drink or wear – instead he invites them to look with wonder around them. At the birds, the grass, the flowers – and to see God’s sustenance that also sustains them, and each of us. The rhythm of camp life – with its bell, shared meals and songs and play time and worship – became an invitation to wonder. In the groundhogs scampering, the Sandhill crane’s flapping, the owl’s hoot, the blackberry brambles’ abundance, the prairie flower’s bright beauty, the cold lake’s chilly water – we were invited to glimpse and feel God’s goodness.

Even though the camp week came and went quickly – it reminded me that all of us can put on our “wonder glasses” at any time – and look around us with curiosity at the world God has made.