During our camp season on Good SOIL, to highlight our seasonal staff, we’re taking a trip around camp to all the favorite places they hold dear. For many, Camp Mount Luther is a haven, a place of peace, good memories, and fun times. Usually there’s one (or maybe a few!) place where a person feels particularly drawn: their favorite place to go. In those special spots, camp becomes embodied, and we grow deep roots into the very landscape of Camp Mount Luther. It’s not just a building. Or a campsite. Or a worship space. It’s a memory, a feeling, a place of community.
Let’s continue our tour of staff members’ favorite places…
Most people have been to the pond. There’s a nice sign pointing you in the right direction (just keep going straight on the entrance road instead of turning toward Evergreen). To get to Ali’s favorite camp spot, however, you have to keep walking after you reach the pond. Walking. And walking. Walking up a big hill. Walking. THEN you arrive.
Turkey Feeder is one of the furthest sites in camp to walk to and you must channel your inner StairMaster skills to get to the summit where it’s located. But Ali thinks the effort is worth it.
A regular site for overnights, you’ll immediately spy the benches and campfire pit once you arrive. What you won’t immediately notice is the actual turkey feeder, now buried by undergrowth, or the grove of trees at the back of Turkey Feeder, perfect for hammocking. That’s a big reason Ali loves Turkey Feeder. She says, “It’s one of the best hammocking spots at camp” where you can get a “good look at the stars and the moon.”
Turkey Feeder has been around for a long time (hence the buried feeder), once hosting all-camp campfires twice a week. We still hold campfires there sometimes, and it’s always been a common spot for Camp Director, Chad, to visit. Whether in need of simple recreation or decompression from a stressful day, you’ll often hear him ask Associate Director, Jim, “How about a walk to Turkey Feeder?”
Besides relaxing in a hammock and stargazing, Ali also enjoys hearing the unique call of the whippoorwill, a medium-sized bird that chants its name during summer evenings. Hammocking has a way of chilling everyone out, the stresses of the world not seeming so big when you’re cocooned in swaying cloth, listening to birdsong and watching the moon rise. The word Ali uses to describe how she feels when she’s there? Peaceful.
The end of Psalm 4 can speaks to this feeling well:
There are many who say, “O that we might see some good!
Let the light of your face shine on us, O Lord!”
You have put gladness in my heart
more than when their grain and wine abound.
I will both lie down and sleep in peace,
for you alone, O Lord, make me lie down in safety.
Turkey Feeder isn’t a place where “grain and wine abound,” meaning it’s not a place of easy abundance and merriment. You have to work hard to get there! But once you see it, you’ll know gladness in your heart and be able to lie down in a hammock and sleep in peace and safety, knowing your Lord God watches over you with love and compassion. Now cinch up your hiking boots and get started up that hill. Don’t forget your hammock!