Last night I fell asleep trying to compose a blog post.  Seriously.  It wasn’t even that late, but I was that exhausted.  Like a middle school novella, I had managed to spill my tray in the dining hall during dinner.  All day, my mind was racing, trying to remember names and getting everything “just right” but never quite achieving it.  Then, it poured rain and we had to totally regroup.  At one point, I thought I had entirely missed the worship service I was supposed to be organizing, and I realized I had misplaced my walkie-talkie and couldn’t find anyone to ask where they were, so I felt like a complete loser.  We did eventually find each other, but by that point I was so stressed I could barely think.  Exasperated, at one point I said in front of my daughter, “I’m afraid I might suck at this whole camp thing.”  She stopped me and said, “You don’t, Mom.  You aren’t even close.  You’re actually amazing.”  From a tween, I’m fairly sure that is the highest achievable praise.

Rather like my fall the other day, something happened when I hit that wall and slid out of my ego and into the loving arms of community.  I woke this morning and found that my daughter had done some prep work for chaplain time activities while I slept.  I arrived at breakfast and was approached by the counselor for one cabin of girls so filled with questions about God that they & their counselor invited me to their night-time cabin feeling check.  I teared up at the beauty and depth of their questions, and that was even before chaplain’s time.  All day,  all manner of amazing conversations began to emerge while the prayer flags we had made and hung the day before moved in the breeze while we ran our hands through meditation bowls full of dried lentils, used sea shells for centering prayer, and prayed together with Anglican prayer beads.  Suddenly, it all clicked.  It has been a wonderful and amazing day.

I stood beneath the prayer flags this evening, feeling the strength of all those prayers surrounding and ascending as this community builds mid-week and I find my groove within it.  Come Holy Spirit.  I am deeply, richly blessed.