When I was a young lad, my mother was a devout Lutheran. I’ll never forget visiting my grandparents and going to St. Luke’s Lutheran Church in Pittsburgh. My gramma and aunt sang at the top of their lungs, “May Jesus Christ BEEEEEEEE Praised! But the Lutheran bee’s that are still ringing were not from the singing. They were from the one’s that hid under the rock’s at Camp Luther.
While many people can recall wonderful memories they built at camp, I have two lasting 5-year-old memories from my brief encounters with camp. First, our family went to Camp Luther to enjoy the outdoors and to encounter God. But all I remember was picking up a rock and getting stung by 39 yellowjackets that lived under that rock. Maybe this little boy needed to experience a tiny glimpse of the pain Jesus’ encountered when He was almost beaten to death before his crucifixion. All I know is that I never wanted to go anywhere near camp again because I associated it with pain. Pain has a way of teaching us to never put ourselves in a position where we may get hurt again. Pain can also carve scarred images in our brains of places and people.
My second camp memory was at Camp Tip-a-Canoe. Do you want to guess what happened? My father thought it would be a great bonding experience for us to go camping and canoeing together. I think he would have been right if he hadn’t decided to tip our canoe over just for fun. All I remember was being scared to death and wondering if I was going to drown. It’s crazy how body memories stay with us throughout our lives forming lasting images that get etched on our brains.
But I also made an amazing discovery at this camp. Although I could hardly see over the top of the table, I discovered a new-found talent: playing ping pong. My dad taught me how to play, and I still remember the excitement and confidence I felt as that white little ball hit my paddle and soared back over the net. We loved playing together so much that we went right home and built our own ping pong table that has travel for the past 75 years to all the places where my parents have lived. My dad loves telling everyone that he taught me everything I know about the game of ping pong, and I won’t spoil his tales. Only by the grace of God can I put a positive spin on my camp experiences. God must have known that I needed a redemptive experience like playing ping pong at camp, because some of my most sacred experiences later in life were at camps. But those are tales for another day.