What I miss...

I'm standing in a meadow where I have spent many nights sleeping amongst its long grass gazing at the millions of pin pricks only to wake every morning to my sleeping bag covered in frost. It is here where I have spent many days chasing grass hoppers from petal to petal and chasing children in games of tag. It is from this meadow where I feel God’s presence and from where I have taught others of His grace. Its color is a lime green, sprinkled this week, with red and purple spots, next week it will be all white when the Elephant daises begin to bloom. I have gotten to the point where I know the time of summer based on the kind of color that can be found within that canvas.
In the distance two Sandhill Cranes graze for their lunch. They are part of the last family of cranes this side of the Mississippi and make their home on the hills around this meadow. Nearby a stream trickles through a rocky riverbed, almost dried up as the summer stretches on. Earlier this spring it was flooded past capacity when I had to bring campers through its water. Soaking their shoes and socks I had to deal with their complaining through the day hike. As a camper we use to build damns out of rocks and branches as a competition to see whose would hold the longest. Today that is no longer aloud, as it messes up the hydrosphere.
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I miss camp today. I miss the hot summer days and cold nights mixed with Kool Aid, sunscreen, Lodge pole pines swaying in the breeze, kids' smiling faces, hugs around my legs, camp songs at the top of my lungs, laughing so hard it hurts, feeling God's love, a meadow full of color, a lake colder than snow, freshly washed feet with a dusting of dirt on the way back to the cabin, dirty jeans two weeks strong, Tevas with socks, smiles around a table full of "camp" food, a campfire on nights when its just still too warm, sleeping under thousands of stars, snowcapped peaks late into August.
It is days like this, when the outdoor temperature is 12 and the wind gusts are 15 mph, and all that lies in the distance is the unknown semester when I think of camp. It is on days like this when my mind and heart wonder to a place where people are warm, where the weather is warm, and the only cold is that mad dash into the lake.