Welcome to the Waterfront!
Emily Caren, Our Waterfront Director, has allowed us to share some of her personal reflections on the camp blog. They give a sense of the contemplative atmosphere that camp can foster. We hope you’ll enjoy her thoughts, and maybe be inspired to write down a few of your own.
Welcome to the Waterfront!
7,000 acres of Maine’s wild woods, trails and streams make you wish for one place to pause and see it all. I’ve spent the start of our summer season overwhelmed by such a place.
Quiet. One pond, but not a small pond. Sure, there are buoys and docks around some of the edges. Sure, during the day camper’s laughter and shouts fill the air. Even now my fingers stop and my eyes are frozen and focused on the gorgeous pair of loons that popped their heads above the water not even 15 feet from where I sit on the dock. It’s a tender moment like this that I don’t even know I’m holding my breath until I let it out.
It’s the moment when I’m still not quite awake, sitting on the paddleboard, knowing what I’m watching for. The mist is rolling across the pond in front of me as I paddle. Camp is quiet. The water is still. All of the mountains and trees and hills surrounding the lake almost seem to be waiting expectantly. Everything is waiting for the moment we all know is coming: The moment when the sun breaks over the trees morning begins. The view of the sunrise is something that will always make me feel like I am close to the Creator. Being on the paddleboard with my feet in the water not only seems to deepen that connection but reminds me of just how minuscule I am in comparison to what He’s made and is continually making anew. And yet I am made new everyday. Oh what a Savior, oh what a Creator.
Floating on my back in the swim area reminds me again of the thoughts and questions that seem to stretch out like eternity in front of me while watching the sunrise. I am so small. The world is so big. I am just one human in a world of many and yet as I float, I cannot fathom anything except how big He is. The sky and the clouds stretch over me just as I expect to see on the sunny day, but when I sit on the dock at night amazed by the stars, I am reminded again that the God who created all this is filled with grace that is wider, deeper and more overwhelming than anything I have felt before.
These are just a few of my stories of seeing our Creator from the MRO waterfront this summer. We are half-way through with our first session and have two more sessions to come. I revel in the stories this waterfront helps shape as well as the conversations & questions that happen in its waters and along its shores. What a gift to be apart of this.
Love,
Emily Caren
Waterfront Director
“For this is what the LORD says– he who created the heavens, he is God; he who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it; he did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited– he says: “I am the LORD, and there is no other.” “
Isaiah 45:18