Editorial Note: Today the Rev. Jarrett Kerbel leaves on the youth pilgrimage to Guatemala with a team of two additional adults and eight teens and young adults. Please pray for them in their travels and for safe return at the end of the month. In the meantime, we present a series of guest posts beginning with this one from our newest Deacon, the Rev. Barb Ballenger.
When I was a kid, camping was the family vacation of choice. We had a large Coleman tent that fit five of us like sardines, and a separate awning to create a dining area. My dad had crafted a camp box that held all the camp kitchen essentials, from minute rice to marshmallow forks. To this day the smell of canvas and wood smoke or the taste of Tang can make me feel at least 40 years younger.
These trips were often long weekends in Ohio state parks; though sometimes they were multi-state excursions of a week or so. They would inevitably include a Sunday and my mom would make sure that we went to church.
I remember them as a blur of tiny, clapboard rural Catholic churches. The smells would be different from what I was used to, the layout strange, the pews different from the large suburban church we attended at home. Occasionally we would find ourselves at a campground service, seated on cut logs in the amphitheater where we had watched “Charlie the Lonesome Cougar” the night before.
My mother saw to it that we were a weekly church-going family, and vacation was no exception. Looking back, it was one of the few times we visited other churches, where we got a chance to explore how others marked their Sabbath, sang their songs, or arranged their donuts during coffee hour.
There is something about summer that changes the feel of church-going. Trips, camps, even just a little time off, can slow things down or break things up when it comes to our Sunday practice. This change of pace can be an opportunity to do some spiritual exploring. For families, visiting other churches during trips can be a conversation starter about faith and religious preferences. What was the same? What was different? What did it feel like to be a visitor? Was I welcome? Did I find God there? These are good insights to bring back to your regular church experience. They are good questions to ask on any Sunday.
If summer vacation offers you the luxury of a quiet morning, consider it an invitation to explore prayer in a new way. Bring a Book of Common Prayer along (or download an app from Apple or Google) and pray morning prayer with a cup of coffee nearby, or read the psalms to the rhythm of ocean waves or the song of gulls. Even just sitting on a familiar back patio in the presence of a garden box or hanging flowers can extend summer’s invitation to contemplate a God that reveals the divine self through the scents of flowers, the hum of bees, or the distraction of humming bird or mosquito whine.
This summer, let your time away or your time to yourself be opportunities to rest with the Spirit and delight in the places where God waits for you. When you make it back to St. Martin’s, I’d love to see the pictures.
Blessings,
The Rev. Barb Ballenger
Deacon and Associate for Spiritual Formation and Care
Editorial: Here are some resources to get you started!
- Find an Episcopal Church near you -- https://www.episcopalchurch.org/find-a-church
- Forward Day by Day - These quarterly booklets offer daily scripture and reflections that fit in a pocket or purse. Copies are available in the back of the church or on the table and in the rack in the Parish House lobby. Donations are welcome. Want an app for that? Download the Forward Day by Day app for your smartphone.
- The Daily Office from the Mission of St. Clare -- https://www.missionstclare.com/english/ -- gives you all you need for the prayers of the Episcopal Daily Office, including songs.
- Listen to Presiding Bishop Michael Curry's Way of Love podcasts, with new episodes posted each Tuesday -- https://wayoflove.episcopalchurch.org/
- Bible Lens app by YouVersion -- Bible Lens “transforms your everyday photos into profound, Biblically-based artistic shareable images.” Take a photo of the places that you are finding God on vacation, and then open them in Bible Lens to see them paired with Bible verses that match!
- Find the Episcopal saint of the day -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendar_of_saints_(Episcopal_Church)#July
