Metamorphosis

Imagine. Imagine with me if you will. Consider and dwell upon this thought. Taste the sweet, refreshing juices of the summer's first ripened peach in your mind. Feel the nectar dribble down off your chin as you savour the first bite from this golden-red orchard fruit. It is delicious, isn't it? The textures, the smell, the tastes and the memories tied to this soft, fuzzy orb all culminate into a fantastic experience. But how does this fruit come into existence? Well, let me tell you the story of the peach tree...

As you pluck this mouth-watering snack of summer sweetness off the tree, you begin devouring the fruit until nothing save the pit remains. If you were a larger animal, there's a good chance that you would consume this pit as well, and within this larger animal, the pit begins its adventures, coursing through stomachs and bowels, eventually to be deposited in a rich pile of fertiliser some distance away from the original tree. Chances are that during the exiting ride through the animal, our friend the little pit probably got digested itself, leaving nothing left except for the almond-sized seed at the centre of the mini brown golf ball.

So there it sits, our little peach seed, enrobed in a thick, velvety paste excreted from an animal's ass. And it sits. Moons wax & wane, rains come and go, but the little peach seed moves nary an inch from its new, pooey abode. The rains turn to snow and the days get shorter; the manure mansion is now lost under a sea of brilliant ice crystals. Time becomes a memory and change ceases to exist for our little seed-friend. Suffocated and frozen, one would think that no life could emerge from its dire state of affairs. Then, of course, the craziest thing happens: the days get longer & the sun returns from its vacation down under, pumping up the therms. Snow melts & the now rotting manure resembles much more of a rich, earthy substance. It is not long before the peach seed cracks at one edge. A day or so later, a small, ghostly nub pokes through this crack, and like a sloth-stricken worm, this nub extends itself upwards, groping for open air. Soon, our newfound friend pokes his head up, through the surface and into breezy daylight. It doesn't smell like poo anymore, and the scenery is much more enjoyable for our once-devoured peach seed. Having now tasted the richness of sunlight, the ghostly nub begins to flush with fervent verdency and flourishes into a leafy stalk. Five or ten years down the road, that pile of crap is now bearing delicious bursts of fuzzy summer candy itself, and the cycle begins anew.

It's interesting to think how that tasty peach you enjoy so much inevitably had its humble beginnings stewing in some steamy pile of crap. Whoever thought poo could taste so good?


This past summer was an amazing experience for me. Life changing. Refreshing. Encouraging. For those of you who read this and don't already know, I spent the past four months at Crowsnest Lake Bible Camp in their outdoor leadership program, learning about wilderness adventuring, liability control & what the insides of a silkworm taste like (the outsides too... Take my word for it: they're not very good.). I think I want to try, someday, to encapsulate my experiences in written form, but in order to give full service to what went down during those four months would inevitably take many, many pages. So, instead, I will glide over the summer & deliver some brief highlights of the most impacting ideas or events.


The Chair

COLTS had just begun, and we were a week or so into May, when one day it occurred to one of our leaders that it would be good for us as a group to share with each other one of our biggest fears and, consequently, pray over us for it. At the time, it seemed a bit intimidating; being a newly formed group, where none of us really knew each other very well & for the first few minutes, the chair in the centre of our circle remained vacant. It was funny, since I knew exactly what my biggest fear was, but I didn't want to go up to the chair first—I was intimidated. Eventually, another one of us went up first & got prayer for fear of death. After her time of prayer & ministry was done, we all moved to sit back down in the surrounding circle of couches and chairs. I knew that if I sat down, I wouldn't ever get up & volunteer to go ahead with this whole dealie, so instead, I took the centre seat and confessed what one of my greatest fears were. I told the group that I was extremely afraid of community. I told then that I didn't understand it & that it didn't make any sense to me. To be honest, community—especially a Christian community—at that time, only a few short months ago, terrified the crap out of me. It scared me mostly because of my experiences wherein "community" failed me: it has left me with not just one deep scar. When telling the group about this, I actually broke into tears. And then they prayed.


Fyre, Fyre, Burning Bright

A handful of days later, one of my fellow COLT mates & I were enjoying a late-night sauna. At Crow, one of my favourite pastimes at late-night saunas is to pray. So we started praying & we prayed for hours. It had come to my attention while we were praying that there was another thing that I was intensely afraid of. I realised that for years I had been hesitant & terrified of showing or expressing love. By "for years," I mean since shortly after my family moved to the United States, back before either grunge music of The Simpson’s had made their debut. When this fear of expressing love had been identified that night in the sauna, we prayed for the removal of that fear, and while doing so, I felt as though a heavy, dark shroud was lifted from my shoulders. I literally felt lighter. I felt giddy and energetic. Things around me seemed to be brighter and more vibrant. It was crazy intense.

A week or so later, our group was sitting atop the saddle between Parrish & McLaren Mountains and for the first time in around 15 years, I went up and gave someone else a hug.


Prayer Request Express

The Summer Camp programs were now already in full swing. It was nearing the end of the second full round of camps. In fact, the camp that I had been counselling at was already over, and our staff & crew had returned to camp's main site to help out / bum around until round three began. The main site's program still running, I decided to jump in wherever I could, and one of those places where I slid in naturally was with the prayer support.

During the game one evening, half a dozen of us got together to pray for the camp & for the campers. One particular cabin was on all of our hearts to pray for, since it had been identified as a "problem cabin" by the counsellor and other support staff that week. Going to that cabin, we started to pray in the room for each specific camper (plus the counsellor) & we ended up praying that God would do something amazing that night at campfire. Not only did we pray, but we prayed expectantly & thanked the Lord in advance for showing up and doing something crazy that night. After that, we returned to the camp's bus (where we were originally praying) and continued to pray until campfire.

Campfire began and all of us pray-ers arrived late, though still praying around the burning flames. Then God showed up. The Holy Spirit moved the worship portion of the evening & didn't stop there, as the speaker stood in silence for a while before throwing his stack of notes into the fire. He told the kids that he had a really good message to speak to then that night, but that God had other things in mind. He started speaking a completely different message, interspersed with long pauses & spots of worship-filled song, being sensitive to what the Lord was leading him to do. After he was done, the group was officially dismissed & many, many people remained afterwards, asking for prayer. It was the most amazing and the most impacting campfire that I had ever witnessed. God showed up & moved in crazy ways. It's cool when prayers are so quickly & so amazingly answered.


The Teaser

Speaking of other crazy answers to prayer, I have a story about how 30 people hiked 4 km in 42° C weather, having only 2 litres of water to share amongst the whole group & how, after the hike, there was still 1.5 litres of water left, even though everybody had been drinking plenty of water throughout the hike back. More on that story later, though.


I hope that this "little" instalment has been enjoyable for you to read. Unfortunately, time ticks relentlessly for us all, so I will save all of us further temporal investment in this instalment. More stories later, and also an open discussion (hopefully) about prayer & how it works.


Stay tuned...