One of the highlights of my summer has been time spent with the campers at SWAT. On July 3, there was an all day cookout in the parking lot. It was hot, but no one seemed particularly bothered by the heat.
When it was time for a snack, one of the campers asked Mr. Cam, the keeper of the gardens, if he could have cucumbers for snack. Mr. Cam went to the garden, picked some cucumbers. sliced them, and distributed them to campers. Not only were the campers enjoying cucumbers (a healthy alternative to chips!) but they had helped in the planting and cultivating of the cucumbers. I am willing to wager that there are not too many camps in Philadelphia who offer this experience to their campers.
The poem below speaks of the process of growing things that involves some input from humans, and a lot of input from God. We help begin the process when we plant, then the rest of the growing is an “opportunity for God’s grace to enter and do the rest.” A wonderful lesson for our campers to learn from the time they spend in the garden which transfers well to the ways that God is their partner in the endeavors they undertake in their lives.
Prophets of a Future Not Our Own
Cardinal Dearden
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an
opportunity for God’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
