Grown-up Summer Camp, Part Four

we are children of the Creator God...

we can't help but be creative 

This is the drum that I beat daily.  It is so important that we MAKE the time to add creativity, art, craft, beauty to our lives.  It's reviving, therapeutic, and it just makes us smile!  Even in the trees, we made time for art!

PART FOUR:  CREATIVITY

When we arrived, there was this large flat-topped boulder on our site.  It had piles of smaller rocks on its top, haphazardly left by a former camper, reminding me of a witness or remembrance pile...

So Jacob took a stone and set it up as a pillar.    

Then Jacob said to his brethren, “Gather stones.” 

And they took stones and made a heap, and they ate there on the heap.   

 Laban called it Jegar Sahadutha, but Jacob called it Galeed.   

And Laban said, “This heap is a witness between you and me this day.” 

Therefore its name was called Galeed,  also Mizpah, because he said, 

“May the Lord watch between you and me 

when we are absent one from another.

Genesis 31:45-49

This pile spoke to me in such a way that I cannot explain, but I wanted to continue the thought, making our own witness pile.

I set to work, gathering the smaller stones from the top, creating a little pathway from the picnic table to the large boulder.

Then alternating stone colors, I spelled out a message, a remembrance, for my amazing husband, leaving it as a surprise for him to find.  When he did, it made him laugh softly, and it brought smiles to the campers who traveled by our site!  I wonder what the campers that come after us will do...

Before our arrival a quick and strong storm had passed through, causing branches and clusters of leaves to fall from the trees.  Hhmmmmm...  gathering some of these freshly fallen leaves with their long stems intact, I set to work creating a crown.  Why not?!  I laid two leaves on top of each other.  I poked two small holes in a straight line along the center vein of the two leaves.  Taking a third leaf, I wove its stem through the two holes, a kind of nature stitch.  Then I poked two small holes in a straight line in the second and third leaves along the center vein.  Taking a fourth leaf, I wove its stem through these two holes.  I continues this pattern, stitching a string of leaves without the benefit of needle or thread, until the string was long enough to wrap around my head.  The first leaf stems were woven through two small holes in the very last two leaves, completing the circle.  

I wore this for some time, feeling quite like a woodland creature!

Cross stitch filled some of my time, reading filled some of Tom's.  He's been enjoying the work of a particularly creative guy, Joel Salatin.  His latest book, "Folks, This Ain't Normal," is thought-provoking and a wild ride through our modern attitudes and food industry practices.

We saw other examples of creativity, too.  Like this lone artist, sketching the loveliness of Sherando Lake in the summer...

and this quaint home for bright red geraniums fashioned from a hollow log...

Get out there.  Be creative.  Find beauty.  Make art.  

And give thanks to our amazing Lord, the Creator, for all the gifts He so generously gives.