Spiritual Camping

This weekend we went camping. Driving up the mountain, we listened to "Lifted," a Starbucks collection of spiritual songs, including one by my favorite Alison Krauss, singing:

Faith can see right through the circumstance,

See the forest in spite of the trees.

So our circumstance was that I was going camping with my four kids. Truly by choice. I love camping, and I want my kids to love it, too. So we need to practice. Jeff would save, I mean join us the following night. Our circumstance involved lots of metaphysical trees. Better to just face that fact - and look for the forest. But along the way, there were many spiritual gifts that lifted our trip:

1. After hours packing up the car, and with all the kids finally in it, I realized I was missing my wallet. That very moment, I got a call from a coffee shop in the mountains (a mere 45 minutes away) saying they'd just found... my wallet! I could pick it up on my way.

2. Need we have any more gifts than that?!?

3. Despite being the only campers with cat pee on our tent (see below), which the ranger warned would attract bears, we did NOT encounter any bears. Or mountain lions. Only in June's dreams.

4. We saw Scarlet Tanagers, Bluebirds, a snake and a moose. (Well, actually, the moose sighting was earlier in the week, near my lost wallet, but it stuck with us. The kids have always wanted to see one.)

5. We managed to keep John away from the fire, three nights in a row.

7. We encountered horses at the stable during their most docile hour - mealtime.

8. We had an enchanted bike ride through an Aspen forest.

Due to our last minute reservation, we slept at a different site each of our three nights. This gave us the chance to get into a rhythm: pack, unload, set-up, take down, load, and repeat. Three times! I was looking for practice, and we got it.

Our gifts were many. I am ready to do it again.