Unopened bundles of love

Faith is a bird that feels dawn breaking and sings while it is still dark.” ~R. Tagore

Summer is just around the corner. Although Covid-19 is curtailing Church camps, Scout camps and 4-H camps, they are still distributing brochures, cleaning cabins, and gearing up for a smaller than usual invasion of antsy, wildly energetic people under four feet tall. The camping season is almost upon us.

I have long held to the belief that the main reason parents send children off to summer camp (where they do learn, make new friends, have fun and build memories for a lifetime) is for the same reason they go to Kindergarten at 5, and college at 18….the parents are ready!

My son Luke’s first camping trip is one that will be forever engraved upon my brain – a five day excursion to “Medicine Mountain” Boy Scout Camp in Custer South Dakota.

My father once said Luke was like a frog on a hot griddle. Remembering, and agreeing, I realized I would have to be the one organized for Luke’s camping trip. I made neat little bundles of clothes for each day – including socks, underwear and a little “surprise” from Mom. Then I tied each bundle with twine and placed them in one side of a red Samsonite suitcase. On the other side (separated by a handy dandy little partition that closed with a toggle) I placed jackets, sweatshirts, his swimsuit, a couple towels and extra tennis shoes. Then I tightly rolled up his sleeping bag and pillow. Luke was ready - so was I.

“Medicine Mountain” was about and hour and a half away. Another mother took the boys to camp and I was to pick them up. Luke reluctantly kissed me goodbye and then was off like a shot, piling into the Travelall without a glance back at my waving, throwing kisses form. His camping experience had begun.

Five days later I arrived at “Medicine Mountain” to see dozens of 10-year-olds dragging suitcases with shirt tails, dirty sock toes, and other bits of clothing sticking through enclosures; carrying wadded up bed rolls; and looking for the right car and the right mother. Within moments of emerging from my car door, Luke came running toward me, grabbed my hand and began dragging me “hither and yon” though the teeming mass of excited, dirty little boys, to introduce me to all his new very best friends. The camping experience had been an unqualified success.

Gathering my charges, I piled luggage, bedrolls and boys into the car and headed toward home. For the entire trip I was regaled with stories about forest hikes, toads in sleeping bags, campfire singing, a June bug stirred into the stew, and numerous other camping adventures.

After delivering everyone to the appropriate front stoop, we at last drug the Samsonite suitcase and bedroll wad up the front steps and into the house. Anxious to remove wet towels and smelly clothes from Luke’s luggage, I popped it open. There lay neat bundles of clothing for 5 days, still tied with twine. Everything clean and orderly. Notes and treats from Mom unopened, unread and uneaten. Apparently he’d lived and slept in the same clothes for the entire week. I’ve never forgotten that camping trip – or that suitcase.

I wonder just how many of the suitcases of our lives are filled with little bundles tied with twine – undisturbed and unopened, the surprises and gifts within never discovered? Not just “things” like my grandmother’s down filled comforter I have packed away in a box on the top shelf of a closet, or the silver tea set (a gift from the grownup Luke) stored securely in saran wrap and never used; but gifts from our Creator we have packed securely and hidden away. Gifts of service and love. Gifts of time and talents. All gathering dust or eroding from neglect.

Often, we become so accustomed to wearing the “old clothes” of the way things always have been, that the “fresh garments” of new ways, which are often more appropriate, are scorned and ignored. We become so engrossed in the business of “our” church that we overlook the work of “Christ’s” church.

I wonder how often our dirty, smelly, clothes of bossiness, jealousy, cliquishness, resentment or anger have offended others? How would a new sweater of daily prayer affect our families, our friends and our church? Would slipping on clean socks of Christian charity enrich our lives? How about a new T-shirt of friendliness to visitors – and strangers? What have we kept hidden in our suitcases that could have been a witness to Christ, to someone waiting for a helping hand or a kind word? What clean clothing of faith and joy and talent have we kept locked up or hidden away?

Are we too busy, too lazy, too frugal, too stingy, too afraid, to empty our suitcases? Stop running around – and take inventory. On the long journey of life, a full, heavy suitcase is a burden. Take a moment. Unpack your suitcase. It will lighten not only your load – but the load of those you meet along the way … as you share your time and talents, your joy, your love, with those near you on a journey of their own. Travel light…and Christ will light your way.

May April find you all singing in the dark.